how could they just watch and not jump in...

[Jazzzoline]

http://www.childdrowningprevention.com/index.html

[Gentle Giant]

Couldn't even watch. Started to, but couldn't. Soon as that child headed out the door, I closed the window.

[GoodSpeak]

How can you post child suffering...in any form?

[patricia]

I did watch the film and the whole idea was that it demonstrated that the tiny little guy in his blue footie-sleeper already knew how to roll onto his back to prevent himself from drowning, because of a course they offered to parents and care-givers.
Although of course no little kid should ever be near water alone, there are times when they are out of your sight for just a few minutes. If you have a backyard pool, you have to be doubly sure that they don't have access to it.
One of the reasons that houses with pools are so hard to sell is that little kids are irresistably drawn to the water.

[Jazzzoline]

I think that "technique" should be shown to every kid. I got my son swim lessons BEFORE I got my pool. But they didn't teach him that technique. I remember, when he was young, before i got my pool, I was very afraid of my neighbor's pool, because when they have teenagers they forget about the security.

[Sandi22]

One other thing that any parent or anyone for that matter should be aware of it, and that's the danger ice chests pose, the kind you take on picnics. We lived across from a family, a family with teenagers and one little guy who was about 3 years old if that, he had just received a puppy as a gift. Someone in his family had given him A little 6 week old puppy.

One day we kept hearing the puppy howl and howl, over the top of loud Rock & Roll music, and it went on, and on, for what seemed like forever, so I asked Rich to go check on that puppy as he never does that, he looked over the fence and thought that the puppy was just in their back room and was wanting out, and we ended up thinking we didn't want to be the nosy neighbors butting in where we wouldn't be appreciated. The howling finally stopped. Then came the screams like I've never heard, except in the movie "Two Women" with Sophia Loren, it was the same deep from within scream and it was happening over and over, sending chills down my body, it was really terrible and you knew something horrific had happened. We felt we knew what it was, and then came the ambulance and the police cars. Our worst fears were realized. The little boy had either sat down on the edge of an ice chest, not a large one, and had fallen down backwards with the puppy on his chest, and the lid had fallen shut, or he had crawled in and layed down with the little puppy and had asphyxiated himself and his little puppy. It was a tragedy which hit the whole neighborhood hard, and it about killed his mother with the grief of it all.

The teenaged boys were watching the little guy, who was playing out in the back yard with his pup, and they were listening to music so loud they couldn't hear the puppy howling over it, their mother had worked all night at the hospital and was asleep; how, with all that noise I don't know, probably wearing ear plugs, but she just couldn't hear anything either. We could as we weren't in the room with the music or in the house, we were across the fence from their back yard.

This was a not so large cooler and one that the lid opened easily, so be careful with those as children love to climb into small places to play, to hide, or explore. The little guy couldn't even straighten out in it, he knees were drawn up and the puppy was somewhat under them. It wasn't large at all.

[Lenny D.Guitarist]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

How can you post child suffering...in any form?

I watched the entire video. I see no child suffering, just a child capably and calmly adapting to a potential tragedy. I'm 100% in favor of this training.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Lenny D.Guitarist

I watched the entire video. I see no child suffering, just a child capably and calmly adapting to a potential tragedy. I'm 100% in favor of this training.

That's what I saw too, Lenny.

[tippy]

oh my god, that is one of the most horrible stories I've ever heard. There was a young girl three, four (my friend same age as me was with her at the time and I remember none of this tragedy being so young) on my block growing up that died having snuck into the backyard of a neighbor who wasn't home at the time and strangled on a jungle gym.

[patricia]

My oldest daughter is experiencing just how much vigilance is required from a mother, now that she has a four-year-old and a one-year-old.
Reaction time is measured in seconds, not minutes.
So, if it's possible to teach a tiny child how to cope, at least briefly, with situations such as depicted on the video, then I say go for it.
Nobody is suggesting that tiny little kids should wander around unsupervised.
But, the key phrase to remember is "seconds........not minutes", when assuming that caregivers can watch everything and react in the appropriate manner to save a child's life.

A little kid knowing how to float will not help if they have to do it indefinitely, obviously. But, buying time is the thing.
When a mom says that she only looked away for a few seconds she is usually telling the truth.
But, in those few seconds a lot can happen.

[patricia]

Just thinking about this made me remember a real situation that happened to my kids and me.
I was at a friend's house one beautiful summer day with my girls. Robin was six and Erin was a few months old.
There were a half-dozen other adults there, all in bathing suits, socializing, drinking lemonade, sitting a few feet from the pool.
Robin, my oldest, was in her bathing suit, but not in the pool. She had been told not to go in the pool and didn't, tooling around, enjoying the day.
I thought it would be a cool idea to take my little one into the pool, at the shallow end, and just walk around holding her just in the water to give her the experience of being in the pool.
I miscalculated how far the shallow part extended and there turned out to be a sudden drop to the deep end.
I stepped off and suddenly I was in deep water, with my baby in my arms.
I would have thought that I would immediately know to swim back.
But, not only didn't I do that, but I let go of Erin in my panic.
In that few seconds, Robin saw what had happened, jumped into the pool, grabbed her sister and swam to the edge, holding Erin's face above the water, saving her life, I'm convinced.
But, the not surprising thing it turns out, NONE of the adults saw what happened, or saw Robin jump into the pool.
They only knew what had just happened after it was all over.
So, even when there are adults available, they aren't always paying attention.

[Sandi22]

I've almost drowned twice Patricia, and each time it was because my friends who were the strongest swimmers around were talking and kidding around, while the tide was pulling me further out into the bay at Balboa Island, some friends came by in their boat, pulled over to talk to me, I was so happy to see them and then they took off thinking I could swim better than I could and that I was putting them on about needing help to get to shore. Really, they actually thought I was kidding, but I wasn't, however, I finally made it to shore, but it was a struggle. They apologized and apologized later on, as they had seen me out in the big surf and doing just fine, so they thought I was a water baby, one who could swim well, but in still water with a stong tide, I was a mess.

The same thing at Catalina Island, I stayed out swimming while everyone went ashore, this down near the Casino and there I was in the same situation I'd found myself in Balboa, while everyone was walking off to go get something to eat and drink, and that was really scary, sounds strange, but both times I had to swim on my back to get in. That and the butterfly stroke, which I can do, but free style, I almost sink, so it's not panic time, because I knew I had to think straight or die, and just do what I can do best, and that is swim below the water, side stroke, breast stroke, and besides the back stroke the butterfly, which is a tiring thing to do, but it works, and on my back the water up my nose bothers me, but I can swim strongly that way, and these are the things I had to do to get back on shore.

Then there was the going away party for Rick Stoner, Bing Copeland and Ricki Griggs, when they were leaving for their two year cruise of the South Pacific, and as the party was winding down, with us all planing on going to Frankies house to avoid paying double for the rental of the pool and hall, the lights were being turned off, when one of my friends picked me up and threw me in the pool, and I was wearing a lot of thick bulky clothing which was weighing me down, and I was in the deep end, and would sink, and then I had to swim under water, then try to bounce using my feet to get up for air and this went on until I could get to the side of the pool and no one at all saw this happening and there must have been twenty five people all around and twenty of them were our top Los Angeles County lifeguards. I almost drowned. Talk about exhausted, but it turned out to be a good thing, because I had to go home to change clothing, and we decided not to go to the other party at a friends house on the Strand.

The party one the Strand ended up with the Hells Angels seeing it going on and, so they crashed it, started grabbing the girls, shoving the guys around, and just being obnoxious, so a huge fight ensued, the Hells Angels using tire irons and chains, etc., with my friends using Frankie's collection of cast iron pots and pans, along with his large selection of baseball bats and golf clubs and the Hells Angels had the daylights beat out of them, but a friend, Don felt a leather jacket on the fellow who was grabbing him from behind, coming down hard on him. so automatically he turned and decked the guy; it was a policeman, he knocked him out cold and so had to go to jail and then to court and was sentenced to something like three years, and while there met a mafioso who more or less adopted him and I don't know what he ended up doing with his life, the last he told me was he was going to be or was living in Las Vegas. Don Nelson I believe is the fellow, a really nice guy, one I really liked, and of all people, one I hated to see such as that happen to. It all hit the papers and it was funny to read how a bunch of clean cut guys had beat the hell out of those thugs.

We drove up to Malibu with Smitty Von Sternberg, he's now a professor at Pepperdine, and Sharon Weldon to watch the sun come up. When we heard of the time everyone else had with the Hells Angels when we pulled up to 22nd Street later that morning, we thought they were kidding us, but when we realized they were dead serious, were we ever relieved we had changed our plans and opted out of going to yet a another party, the continuation of the first one.

Hijacked the thread here, but all of this reminded me of how easy it is to have something horrific happen in the blink of an eye.

[Jazzooo]

I have no children, but I do have dogs. My experience with our boy Duffy might remind a parent to be on the lookout for this situation.

Duffy is a basset hound, and as a breed they basically can't swim for farther than a few feet. Too dense, legs too short--who knows, but I'm told they sink like stones. Luckily, all four that we've owned avoid the water on their own. (Before we'd learned this, we took George and Roxette, our first two dogs, out into the middle of a small pond to teach them how to swim--they'd barely make it to the shore then turn around and bark loudly at us. After two or three attempts, we could tell they were very unhappy and stopped the process, and that night we discovered that bassets don't swim.)

Anyway, since then, we'd watch our dogs skirt our entire backyard to avoid even getting their knuckles wet on the lawn after a rain, so scared of water were they. So we never thought anything about covering our pool--they'd never go near it and would in fact bark loudly when we went in, probably to warn us.

One day our neighbor was trimming some trees and to prevent the clippings from going into our pool, we covered it with that blue bubble wrap which had been cut to the shape of the pool by the previous owner. An hour or so later, I realized I hadn't seen Duffy and that he didn't respond when I called. There were dozens of places I could have looked, but I just had a feeling and went out to the pool area. The pool cover looked completely undisturbed...except down at the deep end where I saw two white paws sticking out from beneath it, hanging onto the edge of the pool. I ran over, grabbed his paws and pulled him out to safety--his head was completely underwater, so I must have made it just as he went under. He was fine, a little scared but within minutes he was running around and barking. The pool cover made the pool look solid and he must have walked onto it.

If your child is no smarter than a basset hound, be aware of this danger.

[patricia]

Anyone can drown, especially if they panic.
The other thing that it is a good idea to remember is that most people who can't swim are very careful around water, much like Jazzooo's basset hounds.
It seems to be the ones who can swim who do things like not wearing a life jacket when they are in a small boat.
They think that because they can swim, they are somehow immune to drowning.
And people who are strong swimmers sometimes take risks that someone who is afraid of the water because they can't swim wouldn't.
If you have to breathe and you can't, you will die.

[Sandi22]

My dog didn't care if anyone went in the ocean, except for children and me. But with me it was so odd, he sensed somehow when I was over my head he would swim out to me and grab onto me, or my hair. I wore it in a long, long braid, or he would grab my arm, or my suit, and he would scratch on me, which hurt like crazy, especially if I had a sunburn, him trying to pull me back to shore, so when he was there, I didn't go out over my head. He did the same thing at the river up in Northern California. Everyone got a kick out of his antics.

One day we were at the reservoir and there were two cute little Mexican girls there, and they were sitting and standing in the water and they began pulling up beer cans, and my dog kept watching them, then he went over and started pulling out the cans, scarring them off, and there he was, carrying a can at a time up the bank, up the little ledge, putting them all in a heap, so proud of himself. He would keep his head under water for the longest period of time while searching them out and then when he would find one, sometime he had to dig a bit to get them, but he found can after can. I hadn't thought about it at the time, but he had learned to hold his breath in the ocean just like the rest of us. He was so smart and such a pretty boy. He was big, so he was scarring the little girls who were about 5 & 6, but they didn't speak English, so I couldn't explain very well that he wouldn't hurt them. He loved children and baby animals. Adults, now that was a different matter. It took a while. but with gestures and such I got them over being afraid of him. They were able to understand he was a good guy. He was that. The little girls had fun with him after a bit. Wish I had video's of him doing that, and the little girls. It was a fun afternoon in the Central California heat.

[Sandi22]

Originally Posted by Jazzooo

I have no children, but I do have dogs. My experience with our boy Duffy might remind a parent to be on the lookout for this situation.

Duffy is a basset hound, and as a breed they basically can't swim for farther than a few feet. Too dense, legs too short--who knows, but I'm told they sink like stones. Luckily, all four that we've owned avoid the water on their own. (Before we'd learned this, we took George and Roxette, our first two dogs, out into the middle of a small pond to teach them how to swim--they'd barely make it to the shore then turn around and bark loudly at us. After two or three attempts, we could tell they were very unhappy and stopped the process, and that night we discovered that bassets don't swim.)

Anyway, since then, we'd watch our dogs skirt our entire backyard to avoid even getting their knuckles wet on the lawn after a rain, so scared of water were they. So we never thought anything about covering our pool--they'd never go near it and would in fact bark loudly when we went in, probably to warn us.

One day our neighbor was trimming some trees and to prevent the clippings from going into our pool, we covered it with that blue bubble wrap which had been cut to the shape of the pool by the previous owner. An hour or so later, I realized I hadn't seen Duffy and that he didn't respond when I called. There were dozens of places I could have looked, but I just had a feeling and went out to the pool area. The pool cover looked completely undisturbed...except down at the deep end where I saw two white paws sticking out from beneath it, hanging onto the edge of the pool. I ran over, grabbed his paws and pulled him out to safety--his head was completely underwater, so I must have made it just as he went under. He was fine, a little scared but within minutes he was running around and barking. The pool cover made the pool look solid and he must have walked onto it.

If your child is no smarter than a basset hound, be aware of this danger.

My good friend Katie Grannis gave me an English Bull Dog, a real sweetheart of a dog, but he was forever getting into sticky situations. She shipped him up to our house by air. Once there, we had a terrible time trying to keep him from drowning in a small irrigation canal, which was near our house, one which he was always wanting to get into due to the horrific heat in the valley. He would swim a few strokes and just sink. I never knew that some dogs just can't swim. Nor did I know that Bull Dogs were so horny, he was even jumping on chickens, as well as the horses and cattle's legs. He was flattening the chickens, them running off squawking, and then getting slung 25 to I don't know how many more feet by our horses. He never learned. A ranch is no place for an English Bull, no place at all.

[Jazzzoline]

* amazed at how this thread turned into a dog's behaviors thread*

[Jazzooo]

"* amazed at how this thread turned into a dog's behaviors thread*"

Well, those of us who have no children often feel strongly about our pets. Even some of us with children, I suppose. Saving my dog from drowning couldn't have been more important to me, or to my wife.

[Sandi22]

It's about children, adults, dogs, water and drowning as well as some good times after such tragic thoughts and memories. I still blame ourselves for not going over to the neighbors, but didn't want to bother them and make an enemy out of a neighbor who caused no problems for anyone. The posts got going on dogs after a bit, and how they can either keep you from drowning or try to, and how you have to try to keep them from drowning as well. Didn't mean to hijack the thread but one thought leads to another, just like when sitting around with a group of friends in real time.