A man in his 40s has died after his narrowboat sank on the Droitwich Junction Canal,
off the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

The emergency services were called to Lock 5 on the morning of 25 July following reports of the sinking.

The lock was drained by crews from the Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service. Despite attempts to resuscitate the man at the scene, he was pronounced dead.

An elderly woman, believed to be the man’s mother, was also on board the boat but managed to get off before it sank.

She was assessed by paramedics from the West Midlands Ambulance Service, but was found to be unharmed.

The narrowboat has now been removed from lock 5, and the navigation has been re-opened. It had been closed since 13.00 on 25 July.

The Canal and River Trust, which looks after the Droitwich Junction Canal, said it would be looking into the incident to see if any lessons could be learnt.

“We’re deeply saddened to hear that someone’s lost their life on the canal, and our thoughts are with the family at this very difficult time,” said a trust spokesman.

“We’re in contact with the emergency services to try to understand exactly what has happened, and will do anything we can to help as they conduct their investigation,” continued the spokesman.

“Incidents like this are rare, and there have been no indications as yet that there’s a fault with the canal, however we’ll be looking at whether there’s anything we can do to prevent this kind of thing happening again in future.”

Fire crews from Droitwich, Malvern and Evesham all attended the incident.

The Canal and River Trust, the Midlands Air Ambulance and the Hazardous Area Response Team also attended the scene.