A state agency is taking measures to keep people away from a Middle Georgia waterfall that has proven dangerous to hikers who attempt to swim it — and to the rescuers that have to risk their own lives to pull them out.
On Tuesday, Georgia Department of Natural Resources rescue teams worked alongside crews with Monroe and Bibb county to rescue two stranded 17-year-old swimmers from the Towaliga River at High Falls State Park. Recent rains have left the river swollen and the waterfalls rapid.
It took them two hours to get the teens to dry ground. The director of the Monroe County Emergency Management Agency, Matthew Perry, told Channel 2 Action News he was tired of putting rescuers at risk.
“We’re getting tired of pulling folks off the falls. It is not rocket science. Keep yourself out of the river,” he said in frustration.
Other rescue efforts have not been as successful.
“Last year we had two fatalities there,” said Capt. Chris Hodge with the department’s law enforcement division. “Those were not the first fatalities, and they won’t be the last, but I hope they will be.”
A 12-year-old local boy was killed in October 2017 when he and his brother slipped and plummeted 20 feet while attempting to cross the falls. James Burdette, 17, was able to swim to a rock and was rescued by helicopter, but Christian Burdette never resurfaced.
MORE: 12-year-old boy drowns at state park; brother rescued
Earlier that year, a 38-year-old Savannah woman slipped and died.
RELATED: Woman dies after fall at state park
Hodge said there are new signs posted at the trailheads on either side of the Towaliga near the falls. They are red and white, a departure from the typical brown of state park markers.
“After those fatalities ... we knew last year we needed to make it safer for folks to visit that state park without being hurt or killed,” Hodge said.
The signs were the first step. The second is ramping up enforcement efforts. Game wardens regularly perform checks of the area to make sure people stay off the rocks and away from the pool at the base of the falls.
If they spot a stray swimmer or hiker, they can cite or possibly arrest them for criminal trespass.
Hodge said he doesn’t relish the idea of writing someone a ticket while they’re enjoying a public natural resource, but it’s the least of his worries.
“Our goal at the end of the day is to educate folks, convince folks,” he said. “If you go out on those rocks, your life is in danger. Not only are you putting your own life in jeopardy, you’re putting a whole bunch of other people in jeopardy.”
That was the case Tuesday night.
Credit: Monroe County Emergency Management Agency
Credit: Monroe County Emergency Management Agency
Hodge said the rescue was an all-alarm call due to the rising levels of the river. The teenage boy and girl stood on a rock, stuck between two swift currents, while Macon-Bibb swift water firefighters attempted to wade through knee-deep rapids to rescue them.
The DNR’s helicopter was on standby in case the efforts failed, and Hodge said it came down to the wire. The last swimmer was pulled from the water just as night began to fall, around 8:30 p.m. Two minutes later and he would have sent in the chopper, he said.
The teens, who are from nearby Jackson and are familiar with the park, reportedly admitted to rescuers that they saw the signs warning of danger and ignored them. Wardens were expected to interview them today and make a determination on the trespass charge.
They have not been named.
Hodge said the battle now is to change the public opinion of the river at High Falls Park from “local little swimming hole” to that of a dangerous waterway to be respected.
“Enjoy the resource, hear it and see it,” he said. “But don’t go out there in it.”
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