Maine officials are urging people to use caution on the water after a string of drownings, including a pair last weekend.

A 12-year-old boy drowned after he stepped off a ledge into deeper water while fishing in Durham and a 46-year-old man drowned in a lake in Turner. Days earlier, an Orono man drowned while swimming in the Stillwater River and a Levant man drowned when his boat tipped in Sebasticook Lake.

Rian Wilkinson of the United States Lifesaving Association was saddened but not surprised when he heard the stories.

He echoed Maine wardens who said people should wear life preservers even when they don’t intend to get into the water.

“Most of the people who drown never expect to be in the water,” said Wilkinson, who runs a lifeguard business in Rhode Island. “Seventy-five or 80 percent.”

Boaters often figure they’ll stay in their boats, and consequently fail to wear life vests. The same goes, he said, for people who wade into the water.

“You’re fishing,” he said. “You never expect to be in deep water.”

Rescuers need to be careful as well. They should never jump into the water to save someone without a flotation device.

“I have been involved in lifeguarding [for years], and I’d be very reluctant to go in after someone with nothing. I know it sounds corny, but I’d get a cooler, I’d get a milk bottle and empty it. Anything so that the guy doesn’t grab me. I made a rescue with an oar once.”

Wilkinson recommends that people swim only at beaches, pools or ponds that have lifeguards, and that they check with the lifeguards to make sure they’re swimming in safe areas.

“People don’t drown on guarded beaches,” he said. “The number of drownings … is two or three a year in guarded beaches, and they’re usually kind of fluky.”