Be Child Safe

Category: Pool and Water Safety

  • Water Safety This Summer!

    Parents and caregivers, Watching kids in the water is important!  Keeping young ones only as far as arms’ length when in or around water is important.  I read it and say it, over and over. To-date, in New Jersey alone, since May there have been 18 drownings. Some  of these drownings were adults, some were children. Some occurred at the ocean, others in ponds or lakes. Some, at swimming pools. All of them, accidental. None of them should have happened. None of them! And their families’ lives are changed forever.

    Recently a 5-year old female child was pulled from a hotel pool in Florida where there are no lifeguards on duty, and she died. Unsupervised swimming is a terrible idea and can easily result in accidental injury or drowning, especially where little ones are concerned. Even if they have good swimming skills, things happen.

    But simply watching and being present in the moment for the children in your care is easily half the battle in keeping them safe. Won’t you be a “Water Watcher” for your kids, whether they are dipping their toes in the ocean or taking a splash in the pool.

    Approved flotation devices are the only ones children should be wearing if they cannot swim! Ducky tubes and pool noodles don’t save lives; Coast Guard-approved flotation devices that fit properly, swimming lessons for children and adults, and parental/caregiver supervision do! Make sure you do all that you can if young children in your care are going swimming and bathing. 

    As a caregiver and water-watching parent, get CPR-certified too! Check with your local Red Cross, fire department, police department or hospital to learn where CPR certification is offered in your community! Often times, the courses are free with a small donation to whatever organization is offering them!  Do it today, you may be glad you did!

  • For Safety’s Sake

    Thinking about safety this week because over the weekend there were many… not several… but many… tragedies. Some could not be avoided, but many could have been. I’d like readers to know that there has been a purposeful respite in my writing for this blog during the past nine months, I have only posted the safety recalls, because I wanted to rethink how to get the message across better to parents of young children especially. Do they really read this, I wondered? Does it help them? Or am I simply haranguing into space? But some real tragedies involving safety and especially water safety occurred over this past weekend that have spurred me to make an effort to get the word out in a more timely manner, louder and more frequently. Child water safety is why I began this blog in the first place.

    A word or two about roiling flood waters. Those who paid attention to TV news over this Memorial Day Weekend learned about a National Guardsman, a hero, who in trying to help a woman locate her cat, lost his life in the flash flood in Ellicott City, Maryland. There are others who were stranded in their car on a bridge–I don’t know the outcome of their predicament. Those were situations which perhaps could not have been avoided. But one take-away from the flash flood situation is that if you see roiling waters ahead of you when driving in your car, turn back, back up, but do not drive through the the water. There may be nothing below that water, there could easily be a sinkhole beneath the water, the underlying road may already have washed away. There could be debris carried by the water that could hurt you, including tree branches, downed power lines, etc.

    Next, beach water safety is on the forefront. Beach weather is here! Especially with impending storms, rip tides become stronger and unpredictable even in the shallows. Accidents involving water happen quickly. Again, rushing water currents and big waves can carry floating debris with them and children and adults can be hurt by debris, branches, floating decking, logs, even floating beer cans–and by big waves!

    “Stay away from the Bay on a stormy day!”, one farmer at the Chesapeake Bay told me years ago. If it looks like it’s going to storm any second, no one has any business out on the beach, in a boat or in the water. Storms come fast on big bodies of water, like the Ocean or the Bay. Respect darkening clouds…and lightning! So if you are in a boat with your family and it begins to look like a storm is building, get to shore as quickly as possible. Don’t hesitate! Take shelter! There was a fantastic photo that went viral this weekend of a lifeguard stand on an ocean beach being hit by a bolt of lightning and very fortunately, it was unoccupied!… Lightning frequently strikes the tallest point available… Don’t hide under a tree or under the lifeguard stand! Get off the beach, off the water, and out of the pool if it looks like a storm! If you do these simple things, a tragedy can be avoided. Don’t think it can’t happen to you, it can. And then someone may have to lose their life trying to save yours or your family’s. Think about it, please.

  • CPSC Offering $1.1 Million in Pool Safely Grants to Help Prevent Drownings and Drain Entrapments

    Release Date: January 2, 2018

    Release Number: 18-075

    CPSC Offering $1.1 Million in Pool Safely Grants to Help Prevent Drownings and Drain Entrapments; State and Local Governments Encouraged to Apply

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) today announces a 90-day solicitation seeking applications for a special Pool Safely Grant Program (PSGP) offered to state and local governments. CPSC expects to award $1.1 million in two-year grants to assist jurisdictions in reducing deaths and injuries from drowning and drain entrapment incidents in pools and spas. The Pool Safely grant program is a part of CPSC’s national effort to make drowning and drain entrapment prevention a critical public safety priority.

    The grant program is made possible through the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act (VGB Act), legislation that was authored and advanced by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) Florida. Congress passed the VGB Act, and President George W. Bush signed the measure into law, in December 2007. The PSGP seeks to provide state and local governments with assistance for education, training and enforcement of pool safety requirements.

    “These grants provide critical support for state and local officials to educate consumers about drowning and entrapment dangers and to enforce pool safety laws in their communities,” said CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle. “During this 10-year anniversary of the VGB Act, we are recognizing the important role of the VGB grant program in helping to reduce the number of drowning and drain entrapment incidents. These funds will assist state and local programs to continue this lifesaving work to reduce such tragedies.”

    Applicants must be a state or local government or U.S. Territory that has an enacted or amended state and/or local law(s) that meet the requirements in Sections 1405 and 1406 of the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 8004 and 8005).

    Prospective applicants are encouraged to review the solicitation on Grants.gov, under grant opportunity CPSC-18-001. Applications will be accepted through April 2, 2018.

    CPSC’s website: www.PoolSafely.gov, has supplemental information about the Pool Safely Grant Program and the VGB Act. PoolSafely.gov has a broad range of free, downloadable information for the general public, state and local officials, the swimming pool and spa community and the media.

    The requirements of this child safety law will help to reduce the risk of drowning. The requirements include installing new safety drain covers and physical barriers, such as a fence completely surrounding the pool with self-closing, self-latching gates, and, if the house forms a side of the barrier, using alarms on doors leading to the pool area and/or a power safety cover over the pool. See additional pool safety tips at: www.PoolSafely.gov.