Years ago, I heard of an Australian living in Makati City who had the bad habit of diving into his swimming pool without checking his swimming pool first. He would do this each night before dinner.The problem is that one day his swimming pool was empty. His house maid had drained his swimming pool in the morning just after he left for work.
SPLAT!
The man was rushed to a nearby hospital and treated for multiple bone fractures!
This makes me wonder how Jason Statham and his leading lady in the movie Crank 2, survived diving into a swimming pool from a helicopter hovering a hundred feet in the air.
Misleading.
These are the kind of movies that our children should not watch. Bad ideas bring about bad results.
Swimming pool safety signs, swimming pool rules, and the popular swimming pool life guard were all invented to protect swimmers, especially children. There should be laws in the Philippines that require all public swimming pools to display swimming pool rules and regulations, danger signs and employ lifeguards to guard their swimming pools 24 hours a day.
Swimming pools are so dangerous in fact, in the U.S. alone, 300 children under age 5 die and 2,000 more children under age five visit hospital emergency rooms for submersion injuries every year!
Here are some basic swimming pool safety tips for your children:
1. Instruct babysitters about potential pool hazards to your children and about the use of protective devices, such as door alarms and latches. Emphasize the need for constant supervision.
2. Never leave your child unsupervised near a pool. During social gatherings at or near a pool, appoint a "designated watcher" to protect your children from pool accidents. Adults may take turns being the "watcher." When adults become preoccupied with something else, your children are at risk.
3. Before you allow your child to swim in your swimming pool, always check the shallow end of your swimming pool first. Then go to the deep end of the pool. Scan the entire pool, bottom and surface, as well as the pool area. Remove sharp objects resting in your swimming pool floor and/or any unnecessary objects floating on your swimming pool.
4. Do not allow a your child in the swimming pool without an adult.
5. Do not consider your children to be drownproof because they have had swimming lessons.
6. Your child must be watched closely while swimming, and it is always best to teach your child how to swim before you let him use your swimming pool.
7. Do not use flotation devices as a substitute for Adult supervision.
8. Learn CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). Babysitters and other caretakers, such as grandparents and older siblings, should also know CPR.
9. Keep rescue equipment by the pool. Be sure a telephone is poolside with emergency numbers posted nearby.
10. Remove toys from in and around the pool when it is not in use. Toys can attract unsupervised toddlers to the swimming pool.
11. Never prop open the gate to a pool barrier.
12. Only swim in public swimming pools that have a certified lifeguard present.
That said, love long and prosper!
http://swimmingpoolfaq.blogspot.com/
View samples of the swimming pools we repaired and constructed at http://www.poolboypools.com/ .
