Swimming and Young People
The approaching summer is a good time to reflect on the unfortunate fact, that in the course of sunny weather, a sad statistic will happen, and the warmer and sunnier it becomes, so the statistic will rise. It is that across the country, a number of young people will die through drowning.
There are inevitabilities, that some circumstances will occur which even strong swimmers can be surprised by, or even drowned, such as unexpected currents in the sea.
Rip currents can be almost invisible in the water, and are channels or corridors of fast moving water that are generally too powerful to swim against, and should anyone be caught out of their depth in one, it will likely need a cool head and the ability to swim, to survive.
The cool head is to realise the situation, and not to try and fight against it, but to swim with it, or at an oblique angle with it, until out of its pull.
Another unseen danger can be the temperature of the water itself. Quarries and reservoirs are by their very nature deep bodies of water. In the heat of the summer, a cooling dip can be more than cool.
Below the surface layer, which, under the sun may feel a pleasant temperature, can be strata of water at astonishingly low temperatures. These can have the effect of “knocking the wind” out of a would-be swimmer, and the cold can have a paralysing effect on the muscles, leading to dire results.
Another danger can lie in the structure of a quarry, relating to the material that was extracted from it. Its sides may be very steep, in cases sheer, and where, for instance, material such as Fullers earth has been dug, wet residue around the side would be as slippery as wet ice.
There are also possibilities of pollution from agricultural and industrial leaching or even dumping. Submerged obstacles such as abandoned machinery are more likely to present sharp, rusty contours than smooth outlines, whilst not being visible from the surface.
It is an unfortunate fact, that water draws children to it. It has a pull, almost magnetic in its strength, whether it be the sea, rivers, lakes or canals, and the hotter the weather the more the draw, and some sad statistics will occur.
With all these potential dangers facing youngsters today it’s vital that they are prepared for whatever life throws at them. Swimming lessons are the best starting point for all skill levels letting everyone learn at their own pace.
One of the best things you can do for your children is make every effort to ensure they can swim. School curriculums today, in theory cover this, but in practise, the more swimming lessons your kids have, the less likely they are to join a potentially sad summer statistic.