With warm weather here, people are able to spend more time outdoors doing activities they love such as playing sports, barbecuing, or swimming. Spending time at the pool with your family can be a wonderful way to cool off; however, taking your eyes off of your child for just a moment can be life changing.
Each year, far too many children are victims of drownings or near drownings. Below are just a few steps every adult should exercise when watching children in, or around a pool.
- Be sure that your pool is fenced in and has a self latching gate.
- Pool toys and floaties are not life jackets and should never be substituted for supervision by an adult.
- Assign an adult to supervise the children. Whether there is one or many adults in the immediate area, be sure that at least one knows they are keeping an eye on the kids.
- Remove the children from the pool area if you are going to be distracted, even for just a moment.
- Do not over crowd your pool with toys that float on the surface, be sure that you can see any children in the pool clearly, without obstruction.
Two summers ago, there was a case in which a nine year old girl had drowned at a pool party. While there were plenty of adults around the pool area to watch the children, no one was specifically assigned to the task. Since the adults were so distracted by their own conversation, they failed to notice that the young girl had jumped off of the diving board-- and did not resurface. Once it occurred to the adults that the girl was missing; they wasted valuable time searching for her in the home-- not realizing because of all of the pool toys and rafts floating on the surface, that the girl was lifeless at the bottom of the pool. This situation was completely avoidable.
In addition to these suggestions, make sure that there aren’t any objects your child could use to gain access to a neighbor’s pool. You could the most secured and childproofed swimming pool but a ladder or jungle gym too close to a fence could give a determined child an entry way into a either their own pool or neighbor’s yard.
During the summer of 2010, a six and three year old accessed their neighbor’s pool and drowned, even with the neighbor’s pool fenced and gated. It is unknown how the children were able to access the pool, however, they were seen playing with a stepladder in their own backyard before the accident occurred.
Drowning is the second leading cause of death for children ages one to 14 years old. In 2007, there were 3,443 fatal unintentional drownings in the United States. When a drowning is non fatal, the child can suffer from brain damage that may involve long term disabilities such as learning disabilities, memory problems, and permanent loss of basic functioning. Don’t let your child become another statistic this summer. Child drownings are preventable and it all starts with a responsible adult.
