Bracklinn Falls incident: Teenage boy becomes 12th person to die in open water during heatwave

A 16-year-old boy has become the 12th person to die after getting into difficulty in water during the recent spell of hot weather.

Police were called to Bracklinn Falls, near Callander in Stirlingshire, at approximately 6.45pm on Thursday following concerns for the teenager.

His body was subsequently recovered from the water.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “The death is not being treated as suspicious and a report will be sent to the procurator fiscal.”

The procurator fiscal is the authority that investigates deaths in Scotland.

Bracklinn Falls is located in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.

It comes after a number of similar deaths resulting from open water swimming during a record-breaking heatwave, which saw temperatures climb to 35.1C in Kew Gardens, west London, on Tuesday.

There have been deaths in places including South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Cornwall, Hampshire, Warwickshire, Cheshire, Pembrokeshire, Lincolnshire and Lancashire.

On Thursday, the body of a 14-year-old boy was recovered from the River Thames, near Donnington Bridge in Oxford.

Thames Valley Police confirmed that the boy’s family have been informed and his death was being treated as “unexplained but not suspicious”.

The hot weather is expected to ease for many over the weekend, according to the Met Office.

However, a yellow heat health alert has been issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSE) for eastern and south-east England and London, running from 4pm on Thursday until 8pm on Saturday.

The UKHSA said it means water-related incidents could increase, and warned of the risks from cold-water shock and drowning.

Data published by the National Water Safety Forum (NWSF) on Wednesday showed 202 accidental water-related fatalities occurred in 2025.

The majority (57 per cent) occurred at inland bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, reservoirs, quarries and lochs.

A spokesperson for the NWSF said that while it is too early to say whether the number of water-related deaths during this heatwave is “unusual”, hot weather often correlates with a rise in accidental drownings.

In 2025, the majority of incidents took place in August, the data showed.

According to the Office for National Statistics, 87 deaths in England and Wales were recorded as resulting from drowning and submersion in natural water in 2022, with 96 in 2023 and 73 in 2024.