Preventing Accidental Drowning
Here in the sunshine state, “Water is everywhere, we have pools, we have beaches, we’ve got all kinds of places.” It doesn’t take much to cause a tragedy. “It can take an inch or 2 inches of water to drown,” said Child Advocate Tina Fleming.
According to the CDC, on average there are 11 fatal and 22 nonfatal drownings every day in the US. It’s the leading cause of death for children aged 1-4 and the 2nd leading cause of unintentional injury death for kids 5-14.
Tina Fleming said drowning is 100% preventable. The best thing you can do is get your kids swim lessons. “They need to learn three things when learn how to swim. One they need to know how to float on their back. Second is they need to learn forward mobility, which means they can move themselves somewhere, and third is they need to be able to get out of the pool.”
Always keep an eye on your kids when they’re near the water and have layers of protection in place. “You want to make sure there’s barriers to getting out to the pool, which would be door alarms, window alarms, things like that,” said Fleming. If you do see someone drowning, remember throw, don’t go. “Chances are they’ll be in over their head. You will be in over your head, and most of the people are not trained on how to save someone, because the first thing they’ll do is try to climb on top of you to save themselves.” Once you get them out of the water, start CPR and yell for someone to call 911.
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