Today's column about bodies in the Harbor brought bad memories -- for me and my readers.

I too have had the experience of falling in the Inner Harbor, near Fells Point while covering a fire back in the early 1990s. It was dark and I followed a firefighter onto a pier. He turned right, I walked straight, and fell more than 20 feet into the water. Firefighters saw me go down and fished me out of the murky water. I was saved from further humiliation -- my colleagues gave me an autographed life-preserver -- given that the TV cameras were on the other side of the fire.

This morning, reader Jim Astrachan, a law school teacher, wrote me his account: 

Read your "in the water" column. Live on a pier in canton. 3 yrs ago wife jumped off pier to save our dog who fell in. There was no way out. Thankfully, neighbors heard screams and came to rescue. Wrote to city and asked for ladders along waterfront. Refused with no reason stated. Just "considered, and will not" or words to that effect. Fall in harbor in winter and it's a death sentance. That's not being dramatic. Water deep and cold. Heavy clothes. No way out. Look at canton waterfront where we live. Long expanses of bulk head. No way out. Bodies go down in winter, come up in spring. Lost client this way in 01, don baker, pres of food brokerage and resident penthouse harbor view. Disapeared jan; reappeared april. As if the city maintains what lawyers call an attractive nusance. Not a good reponse from the city re ladders or even life rings. And every year, some die for no good reason.