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Student who drowned during school canoe trip appeared to swim poorly, court hears
by Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
Posted Jun 1, 2021 3:01 pm EDT
Photo of Jeremiah Perry. Breakfast Television
TORONTO – A young man who was on a fatal school canoe trip nearly four years ago says he didn’t notify the supervising teacher that
Adrian Coufadis says he teased Jeremiah Perry about his poor swimming abilities after seeing the 15-year-old struggle to reach their canoe as it drifted away from shore on the first day of the trip.
He says Perry was wearing a life jacket at the time, as safety rules required for canoeing, and eventually managed to flutter-kick the canoe to shore while Coufadis paddled.
TORONTO A young man who was on a fatal school canoe trip nearly four years ago says he didn t notify the supervising teacher that a student who later drowned appeared to be a bad swimmer. Adrian Coufadis says he teased Jeremiah Perry about his poor swimming abilities after seeing the 15-year-old struggle to reach their canoe as it drifted away from shore on the first day of the trip. He says Perry was wearing a life jacket at the time, as safety rules required for canoeing, and eventually managed to flutter-kick the canoe to shore while Coufadis paddled. Under cross-examination today, Coufadis who was 19 at the time of the trip was asked whether he reported his initial observation regarding Perry s swimming to Nicholas Mills, the teacher leading the trip.
A high school principal says he didn t check the results of a mandatory swim test before a student canoe trip during which a teenager drowned nearly four years ago.
Published Tuesday, May 11, 2021 7:30PM EDT The trial of a Toronto school teacher, accused of criminal negligence in the drowning death of a 15-year-old student, has begun. On July 4, 2017, Jeremiah Perry was on a school canoe trip when he drowned in Big Trout Lake at Algonquin Provincial Park. “He wanted to learn to swim, but I could not afford it,” his mother, Melissa Perry told the court on Tuesday morning. “As a single mother, yeah, it was hard, because I had bills to pay. Perry testified that her son lived in the Caribbean with his grandmother or with her until September 2016, when Jeremiah and his brother moved to Toronto to live with their father.