WA Police confirms two children have drowned in Swan River

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Police have confirmed a six-year-old boy and four-year-old girl died after being pulled from Perth's Swan River, ahead of New Year's Eve celebrations.

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00:00 As families gathered to ring in the new year with a firework spectacular, a tragedy was unfolding just metres away.

00:08 Two children found unresponsive in the river.

00:11 There's this guy, he's got a red backpack and there's two kids that are just floating in the water.

00:15 And he just rushed over, jumped in, pulled them out of the water.

00:19 There was a woman who said she was a nurse. She came over and started doing CPR.

00:23 All this in front of a crowd of onlookers as dozens of police and paramedics arrived.

00:28 There was a lot of panic and chaos and that's when the mother came over and oh my God, as soon as she came over, she dropped on the floor.

00:35 I saw these two children walking close to the water, but I just feel sorry now why I didn't stop these two kids from going close to the water.

00:44 I thought the parents were here.

00:46 The children were taken to hospital, but neither survived.

00:49 WA Police today confirming their ages, the girl was four and the boy six.

00:54 They were known to each other, but from different families.

00:57 It's not clear how they got into the water or if they could swim.

01:00 I think we probably really need to be mindful that we've got two families here who have lost children.

01:06 The coronial process is quite a matter of fact and clinical process and I think we just need to be mindful and allow them to grieve.

01:13 Royal Life Saving WA says summer is the deadliest period and it's urging people to be safe around waterways in the coming months.

01:21 It's also calling for greater subsidies of swimming lessons amid rising costs of living.

01:26 Kids aren't learning to swim and kids aren't learning the most basic of foundation skills to be able to look after themselves.

01:32 Sadly we're seeing cost of living becoming a real factor.

01:36 So there is opportunities in schools, but not all schools are doing swim lessons.

01:40 And often the swim lessons are still the cost of getting into the pool, they're still the cost of the bus.

01:45 Royal Life Saving Australia says rivers and creeks made up 13% of all drowning deaths in WA in the 12 months to June.

01:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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