Swimming pools are excellent for recreation and social gatherings. but can be a safety hazard for young children.
Drowning is the number one cause of accidental deaths for children between the ages of one and four.
For children under the age of five, about 87% of deaths are caused by drowning in home pools and hot tubs. You can take simple measures to ensure your swimming area is safer for young children.
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How to Keep Your Swimming Area Safe
About three children drown every day. You can make an effort to keep children safe and reduce the chance of a tragic fatality from occurring.
Build a Fence
The most straightforward way to make a pool safer is to put a barrier around the pool. You can install a fence around a pool to keep children out so that they can only access the water when an adult makes it available.
This will prevent kids from even reaching the pool alone. Gates should open outward away from the pool area. Other features you should consider are self-latching gates that can close automatically.
Every state is different with regard to fence regulations, so you must know what the height of the fence has to be along with additional requirements for your state.
Some counties and municipalities also have ordinances regarding pools and fencing.
Learn CPR
When you have guests or family at your swimming area, you should be prepared for the worst. Sometimes a child can slip away unnoticed and fall into the swimming pool by mistake.
If you are CPR certified, you may be able to save them. There is a 91% survival rate for drowning victims when CPR is performed for them.
A case study found that in 90 instances of drowning, 82 people survived because a bystander knew CPR. The certification is easy to obtain, affordable, and a useful life skill.
Keep Rescue Equipment Nearby
If a child or adult is drowning in a pool, you can throw a floatation device to them before you dive to meet them.
This will increase their chance of survival and even non-swimmers can use them to help someone who is in trouble.
You can also keep floatation devices near or even in the pool so that everyone has something to hold onto if they cramp or begin to struggle. Life vests are a great idea for novice or inexperienced swimmers.
No Diving Board
Diving boards cause a significant number of accidents as people slip and fall off of them or jump off and hit their heads accidentally.
You can remove the pool’s diving board to help prevent additional accidents from occurring. Diving boards are capable of causing spinal cord trauma, and other serious injuries.
Alarm System
You can install alarms that alert you every time the gates to the pool are opened up. This way, if a child somehow can open the gate doors, you’ll know immediately and can stop them from falling into the pool.
There are also alarm systems that use motion sensors to pick up wave activity in the pool. If someone falls into the pool, you’ll know immediately and have the ability to intervene quickly.
Keep Pool Area Slip Free
You will want to make sure that the area around the pool isn’t slippery and slick because that can cause people to injure themselves or fall into the pool.
Many pools have rough-textured concrete or rough-surfaced stone around their pools so that wet, bare feet can grip the ground more easily.
Experienced drowning accident attorneys would recommend that you include installing ribbed surfaces or floor grips to further reduce smooth and wet surfaces around pools.
For example, there are vinyl mesh pool mats that you can surround the edges of a pool with. There are also pavers, brick, and stone materials you can use to change the deck material.
You can coat any current material you have with a non-slip coating. This coating is a liquid chemical you can apply to the surface to make surfaces less slippery when damp.
At every entryway to the pool, you may place a mat that soaks up water. That way, your feet are less likely to be sopping wet, and you and your family are less likely to slip and fall.
Manage Drain Covers
You may not realize how dangerous drain covers can be, but they have caused deaths in young children.
The suction pressure from underwater drains can draw small children in and trap them underwater, preventing them from reaching the surface.
This can happen both in pools and hot tubs. There are nationwide safety standards required for public pool drain covers.
However, you should apply these standards to your home pool, even though they aren’t necessary for residential areas. T
he drain cover can be designed with a round cover. The cover should not be missing screws and free from cracks.
This will keep the drain cover in place and prevent children from getting caught in one.
Set Up Pool Rules
You can place a list of pool rules nearby your pool for guests to read. Instruct small children on what the rules are and remind them regularly.
Some of the pool rules can include the following safety measures:
- No running
- Only swim when an adult is present
- Do not dive in five feet of water or less
- No shoving
- Do not hold anyone underwater
- No swimming after sundown
These are great baseline rules that can help keep you and your family safe. You can include additional rules over time as you find new ways to protect children and reduce their chance of drowning.
Additional Methods of Keeping Your Swimming Area Safe
If you would like to learn additional ways to prevent drowning or other injuries at your swimming pool, you can speak to a drowning accident attorney. They can provide helpful advice on how to avoid pool-related deaths.