Happy - and safe - birthday!
Summer means fun in the water, swimming parties and braais around the pool, but what about safety?...
One of the most popular features of Cape Town Kids is the Birthday party section, where people can find great ideas for the perfect party, from outdoor survivor parties to Winnie-the Pooh-themed cakes and a princess castle to jump in. This section is growing constantly, but recently I realised that there was one thing missing. Read on to find out what…
Summer is here, and with it the outdoor party season. In Cape Town, many families have their own swimming pool and use this as the basis of their summer parties, whether they are birthday parties, new year celebrations or a braai with family and friends. Often, the pool is filled with excited children and adults who play games, jump and dive, a situation that can easily be described as chaotic, even though it’s lots of fun.
Mostly, this fun is left uninterrupted and at some point everyone is out of the pool ad ready for the next stage of the party, but sometimes – and unfortunately more often than we want to know, an accident happens. I received this email that was forwarded to me with the title: ‘Near drowning’. Needless to say – it got my attention. Thank you to Barbara for passing this on:
“I had the unhappy experience of attending a kiddie-birthday party this weekend where a child of 10 nearly drowned. All the moms were sitting around the pool, ostensibly watching, but there were roughly 15 kids of varying ages in the pool and it was chaotic to say the least. 2 moms noticed that 1 of the children was at the bottom of the pool for an extended period of time and got up to see what was happening. The rest of us followed but we were all unsure of whether she was actually drowning or testing how long she could hold her breath. One mom decided she was in trouble, jumped in and hauled her out. Good thing too because the child was, in fact, drowning. We revived the girl and called the paramedics. Because we all reacted swiftly enough - and trust me when I say we have all questioned whether we could have reacted sooner - we prevented a tragedy, but it taught me a couple of lessons that I figured I would share with you in the hope that you can learn from my sobering experience and not your own.”
When looking at the statistics of drowning accidents, a horrifying fact is that in South Africa, 90% of children who drown are under some sort of supervision at the time (Source: Netcare ). It is this issue of supervision I would like to look at a bit closer. Every parent intends to look after their child at all times, but especially in situations as described above, mistakes and exceptions do happen. We might have more than one child to look after, someone calls for your attention away from the pool, or you get involved in a conversation that distracts you for just that moment too long, and suddenly you have lost sight of your child for a minute or two. It could be a fatal minute or two, and we need to take this seriously.
To confirm this, my brother-in-law who is a Paediatritian just told me about a Christmas party some years ago, where a toddler nearly drowned in a pool full of children and parents, most of them Paediatritians… Again - it only takes a moment.
There are a few actions that can be taken to prevent a tragedy from happening, and everyone involved in a swimming party or just any interaction around a pool with children should be aware of these:
1) Create a safe evironment around the pool, and make sure that everyone adheres to the safety rules.
2) Limit the number of people allowed into the pool
3) Create a roster for watching the pool. Rules are: no phones, no conversations, no distractions for this person. And an even better option – hire a lifesaver (see below).
4) Learn the rules for reviving a drown victim. Attend a basic First Aid Course and learn CPR. According to Netcare, CPR is vital even if an amateur is administering it.
5) Know the numbers of your emergency service.
6) If an accident happens, call an ambulance service immediately. Health 24 recommends that all near-drowning victims be observed in hospital for 24 hours, to prevent secondary drowning.
Just after reading Barbara’s email, we were invited to a swimming party where my daughters of 2 and 4 would be among the youngest, and I was told that there would be about 20 children attending the party. When my friend who was hosting the party raised a concern around safety, I told her that in her case, I would consider hiring a professional life saver. Through the work with the website , I often get requests for tips around birthday parties, but this time I created my own. I offered to make the first contact, and the next day I had spoken to the still water branch of Lifesaving Western Cape and forwarded her their rates and details.
When we arrived at the party this last Sunday, this was the scenery I observed: Two life savers sat on either end of the pool with their legs in the water, watching the children with their undivided attention. In the beginning, most of the parents were hanging around the edges of the pool, but soon they realised that they could totally relax about the safety of their children, and moved on to socialise and enjoy their tea. It proved to be a win-win situation. There were less people in the pool, the children had fun, and the parents could actually interact with each other.
The life savers were professional, friendly and great with the kids, so hopefully this is something that more people latch on to. I will work on getting the lifesavers on to Cape Town Kids in the future, so that everyone has access to this information.
If you want to know more or would like the details of the people we dealt with, please feel free to email me on .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
I wish you all happy and safe holidays!
Eli
Comments
Great and inspiring stories. So much to be thankful for another year of good life.
By hampers on 21/01/2010 | Permalink
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