A community is left in mourning and calling for change following a drowning in Pictou County on Friday.
Nineteen-year-old Stellarton, N.S., native Kale Mason was swimming with a group of friends at Park Falls when he jumped into the water and did not resurface.
Searchers recovered his body later that evening.
"I have a lot of friends out there that go to Park Falls and I kind of expected the worst,” says Mason’s friend, Logan O’Neil. “When I found it was Kale, that's what happened. The worst happened."
Mason was a well-known volunteer firefighter with the Little Harbour Fire Department. He also played hockey with the Pictou County Scotians and North Nova High School.
"Just a super good guy, had nothing bad to say anybody. Unless you're on the ice, then he'd have something to say," says Mason’s friend, Tyler MacRae.
MacRae and O'Neil say they knew Park Falls was dangerous, but the tragic loss of their friend hits close to home.
"I was talking to my mom and she lost someone in her generation, now I lost someone in my generation,” says MacRae. “What generation’s next? When I have kids, is it going to be their generation?"
Mason's friends are speaking out and asking for some sort of warning signs to be placed near the falls.
"I want to try to get jumping banned,” says MacRae. “Swim in the bottom pool where it's deep enough to swim. You don't have jump off the rocks and risk your life."
"We’re all young and a lot of us think we're invincible and that nothing's going to happen to us, but anything can happen and it was proven this weekend with Kale,” says O’Neil.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Allan April.
