Monday, May 19, 2008

The Canal Accident Story

The lady of the lake. Or the lady of the nearly lake. In fact the lady of the canal. It did rather depend on which report. There was one that would have made it lady of the lake as it said "lago esperanza". Unmistakably, it was canal, though I should not approach this matter in this way. It's not right. I'll stop it now.

Imagine you live near to a canal, or could be a stream or even a small river. And imagine you get up in the morning and find the rear of a car sticking out of the water. Well, that's pretty much what happened. How it was found. The exact circumstances are not clear, though one can guess. What is known is that the car left the road by the canal, the road being the Avenida Italia by the Jokers pub near the Viva Sunrise hotel - off The Mile in other words in Puerto Alcúdia. The car embedded its front into the canal bed, the doors jammed, the car flooded, the woman driver drowned. Not all the canals are that deep, but you don't need to drive into the Marianas Trench to drown, a foot or so can be sufficient, though the canal in question was some two metres in depth.

This is not the first time a car has gone into a canal in Alcúdia. It happened a few weeks back, not far from the fatal incident of the week just past. Then, the driver got out. Not this time. One cannot jump to the wrong conclusion, but it is kind of possible to appreciate how this can happen. Go a bit too quickly, not be aware of the sharpness of some of the bends and corners by the canals and ... splash, or worse.

The canals of Alcúdia, made to prettify the place, and to link the lakes and the sea are not always as benign a feature as one might hope. Sometimes they clog up, sometimes they whiff, sometimes the fountains don't function and sometimes someone ends up in one, either in a car or without the aid of motor transport. When was it? Three years ago perhaps. A friend of a friend was fished out. Had fallen in and had not got out until the body was retrieved. And the other day, one early morning, someone in a car hit a curb, jumped that curb and died; died in an awful way.


QUIZ
Yesterday's chain - 10cc to Graham Gouldman to "For Your Love" (which he wrote) to The Yardbirds and therefore to Led Zeppelin. Yesterday's title - Chesney Hawkes. And, smallish world time, it seems that Geoff went to school with Chesney's dad who was of course in The Tremeloes. No quiz today - doesn't quite seem appropriate.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw the car sticking out of the canal at 6.30am. i couldnt believe the time it took to get that poor girl out of the canal and how laid back the police were in letting passersby look in and witness them taking her out and doin forensic tests on her in full view of the public.. It was both shocking abd very sad..