Water Safety Awareness

05/02/2012

Summer and water; this is a natural pairing because kids gravitate to water. But according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, drowning is the second leading cause of death for children aged one to four.

You’ve made sure that you put your kids in swimming lessons since they were tadpoles themselves, but summer increases the temptation for kids to play near water. Whether it’s poking around at slimy stuff, or tossing stones in to hear the giant ‘plop’, if there’s water, they’ll be near it. Keeping them safe is a summer-long challenge.

AROUND THE HOME
Even if you don’t have a pool, kids need to be supervised near any water source. It may seem unlikely, but children can drown in less than six centimetres of water! Watch them around fountains, playing near a water-filled ditch or birdbath or even a bathroom sink. And a child should never be left in a bathtub, even if it’s nearly drained.

“My daughter loved to float her little plastic animals in the bathroom sink,” says Nancy R., of Bradford, Ontario, “but one day, while I was just walking by, I noticed she was putting her face right into the sink. She said she wanted to see what the animals could see. If I hadn’t been there that second and if I hadn’t happened to look in, I shudder to think what could have happened.”

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