Thursday, April 1, 2010

Last pool night of the school year

A 12 year old boy drowned at the pool last night. It was the last night of the year that the school pool was opened. We left to the locker room early to shower and change when I heard a bunch of commotion. I didn't see it, so I don't know what happened exactly. He is at Children's in critical condition right now, says the news.

Here is what I do know. There are two teen life guards on duty for every family pool night. There are also two pool supervisor adults at every family pool night. An adult swimmer was the first one to see this boy and pull him out of the water. He had been in the water at least a minute floating.

My kids are on swim team. They swim well. But I am always at the pool watching. Don't leave your kids to swim under someone else's supervision. At least not in this town. This is not the first incident of this kind. Who's fault was it that this boy stayed in the water that long? The life guards, who I was told were passing a ball between eachother across the pool? The pool supervisers, who were chatting with eachother? The parent who sent her twelve year old kid off to the pool with his younger brother who seemed to be around 5-7 years old?

Even Marley swims well. She is four and can swim the length of the pool just fine. But that doesn't mean she can't drown. Someone could jump on top of her accidentally. Someone could throw a hard toy and hit her. She could swim to the end of the pool and hit her head on the edge. You can't be everywhere with your kids, I know that... but in this town you better be at the pool with them.

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