Drowning at Auburn Bay Lake

[Schraderbrau]

We live in the community and swim at the lake with our kids several times a week. This has hit our community hard, my thoughts are with the family.

Sounds sappy but I gave my kids extra hugs last night at bedtime.

[Russic]

What a terrible situation. 2 things to keep in mind here:

1) I'm on vacation with my in-laws, and all the kids (aged 3-7) are in swim lessons in the lake. The 7 years old is improving dramatically and can putt around really well without a life jacket. My sister-in-law asked the lifeguard who's giving the lesson if he'd allow her to swim between the dock where they can touch, to the floating dock where they cannot. She was fairly shocked to hear that he felt she should still be within arms reach despite the fact she can seemingly swim that short distance all day long. The reasoning made sense: kids at that age are incredibly over-confident and unlike adults, aren't great at measuring when excited fun turns to total exhaustion.

Those poor parents are going to blame themselves forever for this, but accidents happen. Preventable? Sure, but as it's been mentioned here so is almost every death of a child. My kid fell into a fire pit a couple weeks back, and my wife and I were literally 4 feet away on either side. We scooped him out immediately and thankfully he only burned a small spot on his leg, but the point is things will happen, and they'll happen incredibly fast. As somebody mentioned, a momentary distraction from anything can turn the tables mighty quick.

2) A couple years ago a guy died after being struck by a train. My feeling is it was suicide, but it could have been distraction – I'm sure one of you can correct me. As with such an event, some people came out to say the usual stuff about selfishness/idiocy and other garbage. The nature of message boards is that google indexes them like crazy, so when the widow googled his name, CP came up and she read a lot of stuff that was pretty ignorant that she shouldn't have read. I urge everybody to keep that in mind when commenting on threads like this.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Schraderbrau

We live in the community and swim at the lake with our kids several times a week. This has hit our community hard, my thoughts are with the family.

Sounds sappy but I gave my kids extra hugs last night at bedtime.

Ain't nothing sappy about that man. I don't have kids, but I have a niece and I'm like a safety nazi around her. Her mom (my sister) actually gets annoyed LOL but I jolly well can't help myself.

[JiriHrdina]

And now a 2 year old has drowned in Morinville.

[btimbit]

Absolutely horrible

[Dion]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

And now a 2 year old has drowned in Morinville.

........and there was no adult supervision

[Acey]

Guy putting up a cross at the Morinville drowning today

[burn_this_city]

I saw a girl drown at Sundance lake when I was 15. She was in about the same age as my friends and I. She was standing in 4-5 feet of water just offshore and disappeared. To this day I have no idea how she got into trouble. Part of me believes she fainted and went under. I sympathize with this kid's parents, it can happen in the blink of an eye and once they go under you have no idea how hard they can be to find before its too late. I'll never forget the panic and chaos of the search, and how blue she was when they finally found her about 5 minutes later.

[JiriHrdina]

Ugh. That would be a terrible thing to witness
Everyone should educate themselves on the signs of someone drowning. It doesn't look like people expect. People drowning don't thrash about and often can't call out. It is far more difficult to be able to spot when someone is really in trouble.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Ugh. That would be a terrible thing to witness
Everyone should educate themselves on the signs of someone drowning. It doesn't look like people expect. People drowning don't thrash about and often can't call out. It is far more difficult to be able to spot when someone is really in trouble.

Great point. Watch this quick video everyone.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health...le_in_the.html

[blueski]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Great point. Watch this quick video everyone.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health...le_in_the.html

Great article. Anyone around kids and water should know this. I didn't until I read it.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

Drowning is preventable.

Hate to pile on,

Drowning is pretty much the opposite of preventable.

It's going to happen eventually its kind of the law of averages, you can make it 99.9% safer but it is still going to happen eventually.

Laying blame without any evidence is unfortunate.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by blueski

Great article. Anyone around kids and water should know this. I didn't until I read it.

This thread had me thinking back and I can remember at least twice where someone might have died in the water if no one would have known those type of warnings.

I grew up with the ocean and just about everyone I knew took a lifeguard or boating safety course as kids and are taught these warnings but I think with Calgary being landlocked I can see why people don't really know the warnings.

I think if you have a teen look into a lifeguard like safety course for them, it's a good way to eat up some of the summer holidays when you need to find something for them to do. it could save their life, a kids or one of their friends someday.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

I'm just angry that a little boy drowned. Period. Again: Drowning is preventable.

Yes drowning is preventable...as are a vast number of child fatalities...

You know what else is preventable? Insensitive posts

[polak]

We bitch about helicopter parenting but the moment something tragic happens we all blame the parents.

[CliffFletcher]

I only see one person here blaming the parents.

[JiriHrdina]

It can happen so fast, even if your little one has a life jacket on.
Last weekend my wife was at our community lake with our 3 year old. There was a little guy, about the same age, wading in the water with his life jacket on. His mom left the water to get something from the beach. My wife turned around and the little guy was face down in the water. The life jacket was preventing him from getting upright just because of how he had fallen. She got him back on his feet and he was fine. But if she hadn't been there it could have gone very wrong very fast.

[CliffFletcher]

That's why I'm not a fan of lifejackets for small kids at all times. They give a false sense of security, and they can actually be a hazard themselves.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Ugh. That would be a terrible thing to witness
Everyone should educate themselves on the signs of someone drowning. It doesn't look like people expect. People drowning don't thrash about and often can't call out. It is far more difficult to be able to spot when someone is really in trouble.

Exactly, most times they just drop below the surface silently.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That's why I'm not a fan of lifejackets for small kids at all times. They give a false sense of security, and they can actually be a hazard themselves.

I agree.

I believe kids under 10 aren't in the water unless they are in the water WITH an adult. As in, the adult is swimming/standing next to them, life jacket or not.

A poorly fitting lifejacket can be more hazardous than no lifejacket.

That's not an argument against no lifejackets, it's an argument for proper fitting safety gear.