A 19-year-old second-year engineering student drowned in a farm well at Vengaivaasal near Tambaram on Wednesday.
K.C. Franklin, a resident of Villivakkam, was a second-year mechanical engineering student of Sathyabama University on Rajiv Gandhi Salai. He, along with 10 of his friends, had planned to visit a swimming pool on Wednesday afternoon.
They went to two swimming pools in Sembakkam and Camp Road, only to be told to wait for some time.
One of the students then suggested that they visit the open farm well in Vengaivaasal. Franklin, according to his friends, was the first to dive from the top of the motor room, taking a ‘double spin’ to dive. In the first dive itself, he sustained minor bruises on his legs, his friends told policemen from Selaiyur police station, where a case has been registered.
The well is about 100 feet deep, with water to a depth of 40 to 50 feet, Vengaivaasal residents said. A flight of stone steps leads to a layer of rock. After diving into the water, the boys would come back to the surface and catch hold of a rope to climb back up.
One of the students told the policemen that a local resident who was sitting near the well was the first to see Franklin going into the water and not resurfacing. The panicked students tried to rescue Franklin. Meanwhile, the local resident brought another man working in a farmland nearby for help, but they were unable to locate Franklin.
The students had by then informed the fire and police control rooms. A team of firemen from Tambaram jumped into the water and used an iron hook attached to a long rope to pull out the youth’s body, which was then taken to Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chromepet for post-mortem.
Selaiyur policemen said there were a number of unprotected farmwells in their jurisdiction and deaths by drowning took place every year.
Keywords: farm well swimming, drowning, unprotected farm well
