Durban - Three men, thought to be from the same family, drowned on Monday afternoon while saving an 11-year-old boy from the Utrecht Park dam in KwaZulu-Natal, paramedics have said.
Utrecht is a small town in the northwest area of KwaZulu-Natal, about 45 kilometres from Newcastle.
According to ER24's provincial liaison, Ross Campbell, the child survived.
ER24 were on scene, added Campbell, but the declarations of death were made by provincial paramedics.
"The first man to go in after the child was 45-years-old, the second man was 26 and the last man was 57," Campbell told African News Agency (ANA).
A fourth man - also presumed to be a family member - who was tied to a rope, managed to drag the child from the water and also dragged one of the other men from the water, but he was already dead, said Campbell.
Police, fire services and search and rescue were on scene. The other bodies were retrieved by divers.
Campbell said he was unaware of the circumstances surrounding the drownings, but assumed the men did not know how to swim or had panicked.
This is a developing story.