Greater Scranton YMCA’s Diana Dempsey wants kids to know what to do if they fall into a pool.
Jump. Push. Turn. Grab.
Drowning is a major risk, especially during summer months, said Adam Katchmarchi, executive director of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, a nonprofit drowning prevention group. With summer temperatures expected to climb this weekend and kids clamoring to cool off, pool safety should be a top priority for parents.
A child drowns every 9½ hours, on average, in the United States, but by taking preventive measures to prepare backyard pools
and teaching children to swim, parents can reduce the risk of a tragedy.
Last week, a 2-year-old in Scranton died after falling into a pool.
YMCA swim instructors teach students to jump into the water, push off when their feet hit the bottom, turn and grab the wall of the pool, said Dempsey, the senior aquatics director at the Greater Scranton YMCA. They begin by having kids jump into the shallow end of the pool to practice the technique, and after the kids are comfortable, they move into deeper water, Dempsey said.
She hopes the technique will stop them from panicking if they ever fall or are pushed into a pool “and hopefully save themselves,” she said.
More than 900 children drowned in 2016, 24 in Pennsylvania, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database, and thousands more suffered drowning-related injuries.
Teaching kids to swim
The most important thing parents can do is getting their children swimming lessons, Dempsey said.
“No. 1 is learning how to swim,” she said.
Parents should get their kids into swim lessons “as young as possible,” Katchmarchi said. Children as young as 6 months can participate in water exploration and survival lessons with their parents, he said.
The first steps are getting kids comfortable in the water, especially with their faces in the water, and teaching them how to float, Dempsey said.
Like the jump-push-turn-grab technique, YMCA instructors teach students swim, float, swim. To conserve energy, students are taught to swim for a bit, roll over into a back float when they get tired and then resume swimming.
They want their students to learn “little things they can do to save themselves,” Dempsey said.
Securing your pool
People often underestimate the risk of drowning, and there is no such thing as “drown-proofing” a child, Katchmarchi said.
“Unfortunately what I hear a lot of times from parents is, ‘Well it won’t happen to us,’ or ‘We’ve got it handled,’ but they really need to put really strong safety barriers in place,” he said.
The NDPA recommends using “layers of protection” on backyard pools to reduce the risk of drowning, Katchmarchi said.
“It’s not just one thing that’s going to be able to keep a child from drowning,” he said. “It’s a multi-stage safety approach.”
Layers of protection include using:
• barriers to reduce or eliminate a child’s access to water.
• hard-shell pool covers when the pool is not in use.
• self-closing, self-latching gates around the pool.
• audible alarms in or around the pool and door alarms, especially if the pool is connected to a backyard door or patio.
• Coast Guard-tested flotation devices for kids — not water wings.
“While it can be an investment and you may think this may not happen to you or may not be applicable to you, unfortunately it is applicable to everyone,” Katchmarchi said.
People also underestimate the danger of only having one main drain in an in-ground pool, said Tom Pichiarella, of Tom’s Pools Inc. of Dunmore. A single main drain can be “very dangerous” because it can suck someone into it, holding them underwater, he said.
As a result, anyone with a single main drain pool should turn off the drain when the pool is in use, install a vacuum release system that kills the pump to save a person caught in the drain, retrofit an additional main drain or install an anti-vortex cover, he said.
Keeping an eye out
Even if a child can swim, “supervision is key,” Dempsey said.
“No one is every really safe around the water,” she said.
Parents wrongfully assume they can sit back and browse their phones while their kids are in the water, but drowning can occur in as little as 20 to 60 seconds, Katchmarchi said. Constant, active supervision is key, he said.
“Drowning is very quick, and it is silent,” he said. “It is very rare that an actual drowning victim will be able to call out for help.”
Although lifeguards are beneficial at pools, parents still need to keep an eye on their children, Katchmarchi said.
“Lifeguards have the responsibility of watching everyone,” he said. “Realistically, lifeguards are human as well, so any extra help watching people in the water is really key.”
Enjoying the water
When he works with families who have lost a child to drowning, the most common response Katchmarchi hears is, “I wish I knew what I know now before the drowning took place,” he said.
He doesn’t want to discourage people from using the water — he just wants families to take proper precautions.
“We really want people in the water enjoying it,” he said. “We just want them to do it in the safest way possible.”
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8 pool safety tips
• Enroll children in swimming lessons as young as possible.
• Have children wear Coast Guard-approved flotation devices — not water wings.
• Install alarms around the pool, such as door alarms or alarms that sound if anyone enters the water.
• Use barriers to reduce or eliminate a child’s access to water.
• Use hard-shell pool covers when a pool is not in use.
• Install self-closing, self-latching gates around the pool.
• Take proper precautions if an in-ground pool has a single main drain.
• Always supervise kids in the pool — drowning can occur in less than a minute.