Swimming Pools - The Importance of Learning to Swim

If you are thinking of having a swimming pool installed in your yard, it is very important that everyone in your household learn to swim. At a minimum they at least need to be able to float...it could save a life! It is never too soon or late to start.

A swimming pool can be very dangerous, especially for a child. Every year nearly 300 children under the age of 5 drown in swimming pools, and it is 98% of the time home or at a family members house. More than 2,000 are treated in the hospital for submersion injuries. To help protect children from drowning, here are a few rules one should follow:

1. Make sure you or another adult in your household is educated and trained in CPR. Someone must be able to restart breathing within seconds, even if they are still in the water. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

2. Never leave a child unattended by the swimming pool...not even for a second! A child can drown very quickly. Seconds count in saving a life or preventing braindamage.

3. Be sure you have door and window alarms on all windows and doors that access the pool area. These are mounted at 54" - too high for a child to reach to turn them off. Or another, more popular safety device is a baby fence completely surrounding or cutting off access to the pool. I suggest using both.

4. Keep rescue equipment available, and a telephone near the pool.

5. Remove all toys from the pool after use so that children aren't tempted to reach for them. This could easily cause them to accidentally fall in.

6. Teach your children to swim as soon as possible, but remember that just because they can swim does not mean they should do so unsupervised! They are not drownproof just because they can swim.

Whether you are 1 or 100 the danger of drowning is real. These videos prove that nearly anyone can be trained to float in order to survive until they are found and rescued.

Children have a tendency to learn things faster than adults. They do not have the ingrained fears and emothios some older people may.

Here are some encouraging videos to watch...