Man dies after jumping into lake off of railroad trellis in North Smithfield

NORTH SMITHFIELD, RI (WLNE) — At 6:15 on Wednesday evening, a call for help was made about a missing swimmer. A male in his 20s jumped from the trellis into the Slatersville Reservoir in North Smithfield. Upon jumping, the man came up for a brief moment, and then went back underwater.

The North Smithfield Fire Department responded to the call right away, but could not locate the man during an initial dive.

That’s when they called Smithfield and Cumberland dive teams in for backup.

“We deployed three divers right away as soon as they got here and within five minutes one of the divers from one of the dive teams was able to recover the body,” David Chartier, North Smithfield fire chief, said.

They said the area the trellises are located at poses many dangers when jumping in.

“That area there, there’s some rocks and there’s logs and there’s things underneath the water that someone can hit when they dive in the water,” Chartier said.

Sadly, is not the first drowning at Slatersville Reservoir. The most recent being in 2016 involving a 19-year-old man in the same location, and before that in 2011 where a 22-year-old man drowned as well.

This all adds to why the town wants to prevent people from jumping in.

“This has been the site of several drownings, the police do, and the town does, what they can to try to keep people off of these trellises and unfortunately, they make their way over there and this is the result,” Chartier said.

No further information was immediately released.