Rising Sun Pools Celebrates National Water Safety Month

We hope that many of you are getting revved up for your official pool opening this Memorial Day weekend! We are just as excited as you, if not more, but wanted to take a moment to remind you of the importance of water safety. For those of you who have liked our Facebook page, you may already know that May is National Water Safety Month.

The CDC reports that the average number of fatal unintentional drownings each year is 3,533 — about 10 deaths per day. This is 3,533 too many. We urge you to go over these pool safety reminders to keep you and your loved ones as safe as possible.

Pool & Water Safety Tips

Below are some water safety tips provided by the International Swimming Hall of Fame as a part of National Water Safety Month.

• Teach children water safety and swimming skills as early as possible.
• Always brief babysitters on water safety, emphasizing the need for constant supervision.
• Appoint a “designated watcher” to monitor children during social gatherings at or near pools.
• Equip doors and windows that exit to a pool area with alarms.
• Install a poolside phone, preferably a cordless model, with emergency numbers programmed into speed-dial.
• Post CPR instructions and learn the procedures.
• Keep rescue equipment poolside. Don’t wait for the paramedics to arrive because you will lose valuable life-saving seconds. Four to six minutes without oxygen can cause permanent brain damage or death.
• Keep a first aid kit at poolside.
• Install four-sided isolation fencing, at least five feet high, equipped with self-closing and self-latching gates, that completely surrounds the pool and prevents direct access from the house and yard.
• Maintain constant visual contact with children in a pool or pool area. If a child is missing, check the pool first; seconds count in preventing death or disability.
• Don’t use flotation devices as a substitute for supervision. Never allow a young child in a pool without an adult.
• Don’t leave objects such as toys that might attract a child in the pool and pool area.
• Never prop the gate to a pool area open.
• Don’t rely on swimming lessons, life preservers, or other equipment to make a child “water safe.”
• Never assume someone else is watching a child in a pool area.
• Don’t leave chairs or other items of furniture where a child could use them to climb into a fenced pool area.
• Don’t think you’ll hear a child who’s in trouble in the water; child drowning is a silent death, with no splashing to alert anyone that the child is in trouble.

For more information and resources, please visit http://www.nationalwatersafetymonth.org/water-safety-tips.