Urgent warning as swimmers become unwell after taking a dip at popular Scottish beauty spot
OPEN water swimmers claim they became ";unwell" after taking a dip at a popular Scots beauty spot.
Four people from the Fife Wild Swimmers group were reportedly struck down with a mystery illness following a paddle on July 9.
They claim to have caught the sickness bug after a three-and-a-half-hour outing from Fife to Newburgh.
The symptoms included nausea, sickness and diarrhoea.
Open water swimmer Douglas Wood told the : "My friends are regular open water swimmers and illness post swim is extremely rare.
“However on Sunday, July 9, a group of 11 swimmers swam from Rodney’s in Perth to Newburgh.
"On the following Wednesday, July 12, one person stated that they had been extremely sick afterwards and, subsequently, it was found out that a further three were also ill.
"The symptoms were extreme nausea, sickness and diarrhoea as well as fatigue. They were all better after two to three days."
The incident comes days after a sewage leak in the River Tay, caused by a pipe being blocked with toilet waste.
Douglas added: "Research on social media had highlighted the sewage breach at Stanley.
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“No one in the group is blaming this, as there had been heavy rain and potential run off from the fields.
"But for me, it looks like a bit of coincidence that we have this, a few miles upstream, and four extremely experienced open water swimmers fall ill within that timescale.
“We accept there are risks attached to wild swimming, but, that said, swim groups cannot make informed decisions when sewage breaches are not made transparent to the general public.”
A Scottish Water spokesperson said 87 per cent of water bodies achieve good or better water quality including the section of the River Tay at Perth and the Upper Tay Estuary at Newburgh.
They added: "Every day of the year, our teams across Scotland work to respond quickly to any blockages that occur in order to protect the environment.
"Where people believe pollution from the public sewer network may be occurring as a result of a problem, we would ask them to report this to us as quickly as possible on 0800 077 8778 so that we can investigate and take action where required."
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