THERE'S a chillingly familiar echo which emerges from today's Front Page story.

You may remember the tragedy which claimed the lives of two drinkers, a little over a year ago, who took the fatal decision to cool off in the River Severn at Bewdley.

It beggared belief that anyone with a modicum of common sense, let alone an instinct for survival, could have thought it a sound idea.

Four short weeks later, it beggared even more belief that there were youths further down-river who were continuing to put their lives at risk by leaping into the Severn from Sabrina Bridge.

It baffled the police too, given the number of leaps which start in the inviting, apparently gently-flowing river and end in the Coroner's Court.

So, why do the idiots who've taken to putting trust in Mother Nature's fickle hands think they can continue to thumb their noses at fate by leaping from the city's tallest bridge, the one which straddles the Severn at Powick? It's a mystery to us.

If it's bravado, then a parent somewhere should very quickly advise them that there are safer ways to experience a thrill.

If it's peer pressure, then it's time for words of wisdom as well.

If it's out of ignorance, then they can come and trawl through the Evening News' bulging file of Severn tragedies and revise their thinking.

Today's report has already extended that file. Like too many stories in these columns over the years, it almost runs out of adjectives to describe the ever-present dangers of our deceptively-dark river.

A year ago, we wondered whether there would be a legacy of the Bewdley double-tragedy, any hope that the ill-fated pair would be the last of the Severn's avoidable victims.

On the evidence of today's Front Page picture, we'd say the answer's almost certainly no.