Oh wow. I can see the appeal when you're a kid, but that guy should probably have known better!
I'm a recent import so I guess I'm giving my impression of why I wouldn't swim in the river, and I haven't seen anyone swimming in the river much, not round South Perth or the city centre, or the wider bits of the Canning river in the waterford/rossmoyne area before it joins the Swan.
I was 18 or so at the time and it was pretty small beer next to, say, solo shooting the horizontal falls in a kayak or climbing the Centre Point Tower in Sydney *
> but that guy should probably have known better!
I have no way to judge, I wasn't there and I don't know the person involved. If it was a drunken spur decision he was likely an idiot to try, if he had the angles sussed and knew where the piers were then that makes it a calculated move rather than how the newspaper article paints it <shrug>.
I'm a recent import so I guess I'm giving my impression of why I wouldn't swim in the river, and I haven't seen anyone swimming in the river much, not round South Perth or the city centre, or the wider bits of the Canning river in the waterford/rossmoyne area before it joins the Swan.
I may just not know the good spots though!
Lots of boating of course.