Please do not join the White Water Rafting Tours if you don't know how to swim

Wednesday October 17, 2007
MYT 3:50:33 PM
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/10/17/nation/20071017150807&sec=nation
Dutch tourist dies in white water rafting mishap
KOTA KINABALU: A Dutch tourist drowned while on a white-water rafting trip down the Padas River about 170km from here.
Bianca De Visser De Vries, 42, was thrown off the raft with six others including her husband at 2pm Tuesday. Her body was found the same day at about 3.45pm, Tenom police chief Deputy Supt Amru Kadir said Wednesday.
He said police have classified the case as death by misadventure.
She was wearing a life jacket and a helmet at the time, Amru added.
According to River Ailir Ruhasil, who was on the raft with tourists, the Dutch couple and four others from Macau had left the Pangi area for the 5km ride down river to Rayoh.
He said the raft overturned near the rapids throwing all occupants into the river. De Vries could not be found while the others, including her husband, managed to get to the riverbank. They found her body near Royoh area about 2km down the river.
It is suspected that De Vries might have hit a hard object when she was thrown out of the raft and loss consciousness before drowning.

***********************************************************************


Tour operators/travel agents usually don’t mind if you can’t swim but please make sure you are good at swimming before you decide to join this tour in Sabah.
Of course it's entirely up to you. Some friends of mine are good swimmers but still had an accident which caused some injuries doing this activity in Bali, Indonesia. They knew about the possibilities, and still wanted to experience it.
I've tried the white water rafting tour here once but fell off, and rolled in the big rocks with rushing water. I was wearing a life jacket and helmet at that time. A lot of water came into my mouth. I couldn't even swim.....
Thankfully, I was not injured.