Pool safety season
You can’t hear them scream underwater.
In December 2008, a two year old toddler drowned in a backyard pool in Newcastle, NSW. His was the third backyard pool drowning in less than two weeks.
In January 2009, yet another backyard pool drowning. The little boy, from Minchinbury in Sydney’s west, was only fourteen months old. Police said the pool was fenced and that it was unclear as to how the toddler had managed to get into the pool area.
In February, the near drowning of a toddler was reported when a three year old fell into the family pool at Baulkham Hills in Sydney’s northwest. He was rushed to Westmead Children’s Hospital in a critical condition. His was the sixth reported drowning incident that month.
Then, only a few weeks later, more tragedy - a four year old girl drowned in the pool of a unit complex on the Gold Coast, and a two year old boy in a backyard pool at Eagleby, south of Brisbane.
One can’t even begin to imagine the horror and the feelings of despair and anguish of a parent, a grandparent, sometimes a neighbour, discovering their own or someone else’s child floating face down in the water or lying motionless on the bottom of the family pool.
There are currently over 600,000 backyard pools in Australia and the number is growing every day. According to Kidsafe Australia, around thirty five children under the age of five will drown in backyard pools in Australia this year. Worse still, another hundred in this age bracket will be near-drowning victims requiring hospitalisation and around one in eight of these children will suffer permanent brain damage.
It’s disturbing enough to read these sort of statistics. More disturbing though is the fact that the number of toddlers drowning in backyard pools is not decreasing. According to the National Drowning Report 2008, the number of pool drowning deaths in the under five age group has been rising very gradually since 2004.
In April 2009, Royal Life Saving Australia forecast toddler drownings to increase by 20 per cent this year; despite the fact that safety and children’s welfare organisations believe that most backyard pool drownings are preventable.
Until recently, discussion and comment, for the most part, has focused on the key safety messages of pool fences, supervision and teaching children to swim. However attendees at a Pool Safety Forum conducted in Newcastle earlier this year believe that more can be done to reduce the unacceptably high number of drownings and near-drownings in backyard pools
According to Kidsafe Hunter regional executive officer Leonie Forsyth, ‘it’s obvious to everybody, what we’ve being doing to date is not stopping children from drowning.’
‘The Forum was organised to encourage open discussion and to get everyone to think outside the square about how children under 5 years gain access to and drown or near drown in backyard pools and what other things we can do to keep kids safe around pools,’ Ms Forsyth said.
The one sure-fire way to guarantee a child’s safety in and around the pool area is constant, vigilant supervision by a responsible adult.
As Royal Life Saving CEO, Rob Bradley, explained, ‘with small children supervision is vital because children drown silently and quickly. Unlike adults, they don’t splash, they don’t scream, they don’t make sounds that would alert you, so you need to keep them within arm’s reach when they are in, on, or around water.’
But what if, as has happened, children aren’t properly supervised all the time? And what can we do to ensure the safety of young children when a pool is not in use and they are not ‘within arm’s reach’ and are ‘out of sight’?
Evidence suggests we put a lot of faith in fences and, to a far lesser extent, alarms specially designed to keep children and others out of the pool area or to alert whoever is in the vicinity if someone falls into the pool. Fences and alarms however are not measures designed to prevent children from actually falling into the water.
An approved safety fence and properly latched gate will keep most children away from the pool. But it won’t keep them out if they can get over, under or through the fence or if the gate is ajar. Never underestimate how enterprising young adventurous, inquisitive children can be.
As soon as they’ve learned to walk and begun to climb some youngsters find ways to scale a pool fence. One child leaned a pushbike up against a pool fence and was able to scramble up and over into the ‘danger zone’. Another climbed up onto chair and undid the latch on the pool gate. Trees close to the pool fence can also be climbed.
As Rob Bradley pointed out, ‘an increasing number of children are drowning by getting through, under or over existing pool gates and fencing that their parents believed were secure.’ And, despite her asserting the importance of supervision as the only ‘fail safe’ way to prevent youngsters drowning, Leonie Forsyth did concede that ‘the supervision of young children a hundred per cent of the time is very difficult.’
Pool alarms (which don’t rate too highly with child safety organisations in Australia) also have their shortcomings. Some are activated when a person enters the pool area; others only when someone falls into the water. Either way, their effectiveness depends on the alarm being in good working order and always turned on, as well as someone hearing the alarm and being able to respond in time.
The key question then is if a child evades adult supervision and gets past the gate and/or pool alarm, is there anything more preventative that can be put in place?
Pool safety equipment industry spokesperson, Bruce Irving, believes one of the best safety devices in such circumstances is an approved pool safety net.
‘Nearly 150,000 safety nets have been installed in pools in many countries around the world including the United States, Australia, South Africa and in Europe over the past twenty five years and there have never been any reported drownings in these pools,’ Mr Irving said. ‘Once an approved pool safety net is properly fitted and tensioned there’s no way a young child, or anyone else for that matter, can accidently fall into the pool and drown.’
However no one in the industry believes the pool safety net should replace fences or adult supervision. Irving and his colleagues see the net as just another very effective ‘layer of protection’ against accidental drowning.
Leonie Forsyth agrees that the right kind of pool net can certainly provide an additional ‘layer of protection’. ‘I have friends who have a pool net and it’s very effective,’ Ms Forsyth said. But she did stress the importance of purchasing the best product available, ensuring the net is properly installed and never forgetting that above all else ‘constant supervision is the only fail safe way to prevent childhood drowning.’
Dr Richard Franklin, National Manager of Research & Health Promotion, Royal Life Saving Society of Australia concurs that pool safety nets could be used as an effective tertiary prevention measure but cautions that they have their shortcomings. ‘In particular they require someone to put them back in place when the pool is not being used,’ he said.
A proposal for an annual ‘green slip’ safety certificate for NSW pool owners has the backing of the NSW state coroners, RLS and the NSW Local Government Association. Coroner Mary Jerram hopes the green slip proposal will spark ‘extensive debate in the community’.
Most pool owners will continue to heed the advice of the safety and children’s welfare organisations in Australia and regularly check pool fences and gates, ensure adequate supervision, teach their children to swim and know what to do in an emergency. Some will install pool alarms and pool nets – all have their limitations as ‘stand-alone’ safety measures. Combined and employed as a ‘package’ of preventative measures however, each complementing the other, the risk of a child drowning in a backyard pool can be dramatically reduced.
After all, you can’t hear a child scream underwater.
by Mal Davies
References
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This article was first published in the Spring 2009 edition of Australian Family Magazine.
Copyright Australian Family 2010. All rights reserved. WARNING: This publication and website information is intended as a first point of reference and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional advice from a qualified medical or other relevant professional.
