Swimming Pool Chemicals
Phoenix Children’s Hospital kicked off the swimming season this week by attempting to ensure that Valley children know how to be safe poolside.
Nearly 1,100 first-grade students from more than a dozen Southeast Valley schools attended the 13th annual Water Safety Day at Mesa Community College on Tuesday.
Organized by the hospital’s Water Watchers program, it included a pool with water-rescue demonstrations, puppet show, musical program and carnival activities. Fire trucks from 13 Valley departments were on hand, along with a vehicle from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and a Coast Guard boat. Sponsors included Valley Toyota dealers, SRP Safety Connection, La-Z-Boy furniture and MCC.
Water Safety Day was conceived by Druann Letter after her son, Weston, drowned 14 years ago at age 3. Letter, a first-grade teacher at Kyrene de la Cielo in Chandler, said the idea stemmed from her son’s death and the misconceptions her students had about water safety.
Inspired by the famous “stop, drop and roll” fire-safety slogan, Letter, her husband and her mother came up with what they called the ABC’s of water safety: adult supervision; barriers, such as self-closing fences, and classes to teach swimming and CPR.
Almost a year after Weston’s drowning, MCC, where Letter’s mother was a dean, hosted the first Water Safety Day to stress the water-safety ABC’s. Over the years, the program has gone to South Mountain, Glendale and Chandler-Gilbert community colleges to reach as many students as possible, Letter said.
“We’ll never be able to count if we have saved lives, but we have to believe that we have,” she said.
Prominently displayed by the pool were 120 silhouettes, 17 of which had pairs of shoes beneath them, representing water-related incidents and fatalities, respectively, in the Valley last year. Ten percent of the roughly hundred survivors will suffer life-long disabilities. This year, 21 water-related incidents with three child fatalities have bene reported in Maricopa and Pinal counties, reports show.
Fritz Bordes, among 40 volunteers at Water Safety Day from University of Phoenix, said the silhouettes show children the reality of water danger. The day is about talking to children on their level and getting them to understand how to be safe early in their lives, he said.
“Once it’s embedded in their head, they might not show it, but it’s there,” Bordes said.
Bill Scott, a regular at the event since its inception, teaches that message through music and dance. Tuesday, he had children sing and dance to an upbeat Latin tempo as he spread a drowning-prevention message.
Scott, a retired Phoenix firefighter, started his “musicate” program more than two decades ago when he went to his son’s school with an acoustic guitar and made up songs on the spot. Since then, he’s been contracted by schools across the state to sing about such topics as fire, gun and water safety.
There’s something about the music and hand gestures that sticks with children, he said. Former students still come up, say they remember his program and teach the lessons to their children.
“I just hope these programs don’t go away, because the kids need them,” he said.
Tiffaney Isaacson, water-safety coordinator at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, said Arizona is second only to Florida in child drowning per capita. A young population, a high proportion of backyard pools and constantly sunny weather makes Arizona vulnerable to drownings, she said.
Water Safety Day is only the midpoint of water-safety education, Isaacson said. Over the past few weeks, schools have taught water-safety lessons distributed by the hospital and will continue to do so for the next few, as well, she said. The children are given evaluations before and after the curriculum is taught to evaluate how effectively they are learning water safety, Isaacson said.
Isaacson said that any school that can’t participate in the day could implement these lessons to spread water safety into the wider community. The curriculum is available for anyone to download at the hospital’s website, she said.
“The reach of the curriculum is literally infinite,” Isaacson said.
Deanna Woerner, a teacher at Queen of Peace, a private Catholic school in downtown Mesa, said the curriculum has added to her usual lessons about water safety. The lesson and homework are engaging and her students have been looking forward to Water Safety Day for months, she said.
Woerner said the program and lessons are reinforcing water-safety skills and dispelling false notions children often have about drowning.
“I hope it’s changing their beliefs over what is safe and what isn’t safe,” Woerner said.
Drowning statistics
Chandler: Had 18 water-related incidents, one of which was fatal, in 2011 and six fatalities from 2000 to 2011. According to U.S. Census data, there are nearly 18,000 children in the “high risk” age group (younger than 5) in Chandler. .
Gilbert: Had six water-related incidents, two of which were fatal, in 2011 and 11 fatalities from 2000 to 2011. According to U.S. Census data, there are nearly 18,000 children in the “high risk” age group (younger than 5) in Gilbert.
Mesa: Had 13 water-related incidents, two of which were fatal, in 2011 and 33 fatalities from 2000 to 2011. According to U.S. Census data, there are nearly 33,000 children in the “high risk” age group (younger than 5) in Mesa.
Tempe: Had six water-related injuries but no fatalities in 2011 and two fatalities from 2000 to 2011. According to U.S. Census data, there are nearly 8,000 children in the “high risk” age group (younger than 5) in Tempe.
Phoenix: There were 54 water-related incidents, eight of which were fatal, in 2011 and 99 fatalities from 2000 to 2011. According to U.S. Census data, there are nearly 119,000 children in the “high risk” age group (younger than 5) in Phoenix.
Mesa Walk
for Water Safety
What: Mesa Fire Department and community volunteers are targeting 10,000 homes to distribute information about drowning prevention.
When: 8-10 a.m. Saturday.
Where: Volunteers meet at Mesa Fire Station 211, 2130 N. Horne.
Related posts
