[blparent] Swimming pools at home

Wed Jun 22 06:09:14 UTC 2011

Please, please, everybody read this and take it to heart.  I have a friend 
who is very close to a couple whose ten-year-old little girl nearly drowned 
this summer.  It was in a swimming pool at an apartment complex, and the 
parents were keeping an eye on the child but also moving boxes and furniture 
out of an apartment at the same time.  The little girl was only under water 
a few minutes, and her dad knew CPR and started it as soon as she was pulled 
out.  But she was on a ventillator for quite a while, and now it's a very 
slow recovery process in the hospital.  Her mind seems to be intact, but she 
will probably end up blind and with severe damage to her motor skills.  It's 
all very sad, and it happened so quickly.  Supervision can't be stressed 
enough.  And also teaching your kids how to swim, at least enough to save 
themselves and not to panic, is crucial.

My 15-year-old stepson doesn't know how to swim, and it scares me to death. 
I won't take him and Sarah to the pool without a sighted person.  Sarah I 
could put in her Water Wings and stay close to her and we'd be fine, but 
both of them would be too much for me.  I took them to the local water park 
last week, and even though there were lifeguards on duty, I brought along a 
teenager--I paid for her gas and her ticket into the park.  She knows Sarah 
well.  I told Stephen and the teenage girl that they could trade off, so 
each of them could do the water slides on their own, but that the rule was, 
one of them had to have their eyes on Sarah at all times, period.  The girl 
said I was paranoid, there were a lot of lifeguards.  I told her she'd be a 
mom someday, and then she'd understand, but for the moment she just better 
accept that I had the right to be paranoid, and that it wouldn't change. 
Especially with poor Hannah drowning this summer, and all I've seen that 
family go through, you just can't be too careful.  I see moms in the complex 
here sending their elementary age children to the pool with their preschool 
age siblings all the time, and it scares me to no end.

Two bits worth of free advice and anecdotes,
Jo Elizabeth

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, 
unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into 
advance."--Franklin D. Roosevelt

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Veronica Smith" <madison_tewe at spinn.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 9:47 PM
To: "'NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [blparent] Swimming pools at home

>
> Tots can drown in portable swimming pools, too
>
> By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
>
> Portable pools pose a greater safety threat to small children than many
> parents realize, a new study suggests.
>
> About two dozen children each year drown in portable pools, according to a
> study published today in Pediatrics. Nearly all are under age 5.
>
> Unlike permanent pools, portable pools aren't typically required to meet 
> any
> local safety standards, says study author Gary Smith, director of the 
> Center
> for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in
> Columbus, Ohio.
>
> Smith notes that portable pools are increasingly popular and come in all
> sizes. Hard-plastic wading pools, which hold about 18 inches of water, may
> cost only a few dollars at a local drugstore. Family-size, inflatable 
> pools,
> nearly as large as a small, in-ground pool, can cost closer to $1,000, he
> says.
>
> These pools pose unique risks, says Meri-K Appy,  president of Safe Kids
> USA, an advocacy group. Few people, for example, are willing to invest in
> building a safety fence around a portable pool  one of the best ways to
> prevent drownings  because a fence could cost more than the pool itself.
>
> These pools are too small for people to invest in an isolation fence but 
> too
> large to drain every time," Appy says.
>
> About 11% of all pool drowning deaths in kids under 5 take place in 
> portable
> pools,  the Consumer Product Safety Commission says.
>
> Children drowned in as little as 2 inches of water, according to the 
> study,
> based on data from a total of 209 deaths from 2001 to 2009.
>
> About 43% of the children were being supervised when they went under 
> water;
> 39% were unsupervised; and 18% of kids died during a "lapse" in 
> supervision.
>
>
> Parents don't always understand that it just takes a couple of minutes for
> children to be submerged under water for their breathing and heart to 
> stop,"
> Smith says. What's different about drowning is that it's quick, it's 
> silent
> and it's final.
>
> When supervising kids in the water, Appy says, caregivers need to give
> children their full attention and be only an arm's length away. Children
> have died at swimming parties, surrounded by others, because adults 
> weren't
> within reach.
>
> Drowning is the leading cause of death from unintentional injuries in
> children ages 1 to 4, causing 29% of these deaths  more even than traffic
> accidents, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They
> include not only pools and lakes but bathtubs. Parents also should learn
> CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, says Susan Baker, professor with 
> the
> Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. The study notes that
> few parents even attempted CPR, perhaps because they doubted their skills.
>
>
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