Have you ever had a nightmare about drowning? How about your children? Do you know in “30 percent of [drowning] cases, most children were supervised by one or both parents, proving that it only takes a few moments for a child to slip under the surface and drown.“ I just read this alarming statistic. This number is based on approximately 300 kids under 5 drowning in their backyard swimming pools every year.
I grew up with a swimming pool. It was a good sized one that my dad put in one year with as much help as I could give since I was only about 8. It was above ground with a wooden deck and built in fence. At least once a day my siblings, friends, and I would be swimming without any supervision and it was very deep. One side was 4 feet deep above ground while the other side was 8 feet, with the extra 4 feet going below ground level. We would dive and play with no thought of possible drowning.
If this wasn’t bad enough late at night we would sometimes wake up to splashing outside. The teenagers in town would be using it as a getaway play area. One sound from us however, and they would be gone.
In case you find this surprising this was the early 1960s to mid 70s. In those days these statistics weren’t available and people assumed this sort of thing was safe.
But I am surprised considering we once almost had a drowning in the family. It was a nice summer day, a perfect beach day. My dad packed up the family consisting of his wife and 5 kids, hooked up his small power boat, and headed out. Not long before we had found a pond not far from where we lived. It was nice and quiet there but large enough to use the boat. It was quiet because not too many people knew about it. It was owned by the prison across the street. We found out about it because an uncle of mine worked there.
To get to it we followed a dirt path into the woods. As we drove along we would come to a wooden gate. Dad would stop the car, open it, drive through, stop and close it behind us. This would happen 5 times before we got to the pond. Once there we would drop the boat in and then we would ride, swim, and picnic. Usually we had the place to ourselves as you can probably imagine.
One day when I was about 5 we were out swimming and having a grand time. Suddenly from around the boat, which was just sitting in the water, my younger sister came floating face down. We didn’t react immediately because all the kids had learned how to do the dead man float and we were practicing. But then we realized that she was doing it too well. My parents rushed in, grabbed her and pulled her onto the sand. Mom was a nurse and knew cpr. Within moments my sister was awake and resting comfortably. Since all the kids were so young it wasn’t until years later when our parents told the story that we really understood what had happened.
My wife had a similar problem when she was 5 or 6. She was walking in the water at a beach on the ocean when she suddenly dropped into a hole. She tells me that for some reason she wasn’t able to swim to the top. She was on the bottom watching people walk by when suddenly a man, realizing what was happening, reached down and pulled her to safety.
I have always been pretty protective of my son Max. If he is swimming I have always kept my eyes focused on him whether I am in or out of the water. But then something happened that shocked me. When he was about 4 years old we had gone to visit my wife’s parents. They lived in an apartment complex with a large pool. It was 3 feet deep at one end and 8 feet deep at the other. There were stairs with a railing that stretched out almost the whole width of the shallow end.
It was hot and the pool was crowded that day while Max and I swam and played. My wife, her parents, and her brother sat on chairs at the shallow end beside the life guard, watching us. After awhile I got out to sit and talk with them. The whole time I kept my eyes on Max who was now just going up and down the stairs and splashing.
On one round he kept going. He stepped down the stairs all the way to the bottom; he then turned to look at us. I watched him for a minute; everyone else also watched him. Then it dawned on us at about the same moment that he was staring at us from the bottom of the pool. The water was so clear that it looked like his head was above it.
I immediately stepped over to the edge, reached with one arm, and lifted him bodily out of the water. He gasped as his head came up. I turned with him in my arms to see my wife and in-laws watching with horror on their faces. My wife was halfway out of her seat and her father was struggling but he is semi paralyzed from the waist down so it was going to be tough for him to get there. The lifeguard was totally oblivious to what was happening.
My son is 8 years old now and is a very good swimmer but I still try to keep my eyes on him at all times. As you can see this type of situation can happen at any time, when we least expect it, even if we are watching as best we can. All parents should read this article; from personal experience I can say that it is true, “it can take only a few moments.”
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