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Attention Vital For Pool Safety

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By HALLE STOCKTON

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: July 27, 2008

Backyard swimming pools are a treat for most families, but they also can be a source of danger for infants and toddlers.

Florida leads the nation in the number of unintentional toddler drownings, the top cause of death for that age group.

About 50 Florida children younger than 4 died each year from 2001 to 2005 by drowning in residential swimming pools, and another 200 or so are hospitalized each year, according to the Florida Department of Health.

The risk created by unprotected pools was brought home in Manatee County recently when two children drowned in a two-day period.

And on Tuesday, another tragedy was averted when a Palmetto mother scooped her 2-year-old daughter out of the pool after the girl was immersed for nearly a minute. She was hospitalized and nursed back to normal, according to the county's Emergency Communications Center.

In most cases, the accident happens while a parent is distracted for a few minutes.

But when supervision fails, physical barriers like fences, covers and sensors can make your pool safer.

The Florida Legislature recognized the need for more pool safety in October 2000 when it passed a law requiring barriers for new residential swimming pools.

The law calls for at least a 4-foot barrier with no gaps to be placed around the perimeter of the pool and far enough away that, if a child climbed over they would not immediately splash into the pool.

The law also can be satisfied with an approved safety pool cover or net and alarms placed on doors and windows with direct access to the pool.

But the law affects only pools built after Oct. 1, 2000.

Manatee County sheriff's Maj. Connie Shingledecker, chairwoman of the county's Child Fatality Review Committee, said parental supervision is the best defense against a pool accident.

Shingledecker said that close supervision along with "creating multiple barriers depending on where your child is developmentally" are the only proven methods for preventing drownings.

Although infant and toddler water survival lessons may be helpful for some children, she said the tactics must be constantly reinforced because the child may forget and will no longer fear the water.

There have been three Sarasota-area deaths attributed to drowning in 2008 by the county medical examiner's office: an 11-month-old Palmetto girl and a 3-year-old Parrish boy who drowned in their pools on June 30 and July 1, respectively, and a 7-year-old blind autistic boy who drowned in a pond behind his north Manatee home in March.

Unintentional drownings and near-drownings heighten in the summer months and peak in July, according to the state's Department of Health.

Sam Baublitz of the Baby Safe Co., a pool fencing company, said people who fail to install barriers often fall into two categories.

"There's the young family who always has that mentality that it will not happen to me," he said. "Then there's the grandparents who say, 'Well, my child didn't need this.'"

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