Children's Safety Zone

With the weather heating up and summer around the corner, local public-safety departments and organizations are kicking off various events around the Southeast Valley to reinforce pool safety in the minds of children and adults.

This year those campaigns take on a greater urgency because 2010 saw child drownings continuing a steady five-year increase Valley-wide. Ten children drowned in Maricopa County in 2006, and that number doubled last year.

The Southeast Valley has not been immune to those tragedies. Since 2000, there have been 68 water-related incidents involving children in Gilbert, including nine deaths. In Mesa, there have been 155 incidents and 33 deaths. In Chandler there have been 55 incidents and six deaths.

That slight uptick can be attributed in part to the economy, said Tiffaney Isaacson, water-safety coordinator at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

With less money to spend, parents may not be able to fix a broken lock or pool gate right away, kids may be left home alone because of child-care costs and parents may be less attentive after working a second job, she said.

“Parents need to know that there are things you can do to protect your children in any economy,” she said.

That’s where the campaigns come in.

Although some are aimed at making parents more aware of what they can and should do to protect their children around pools, others are geared toward swimming and pool-safety lessons for babies and young kids.

In the past decade, education has been centered on layers of protection: watching children, having a fence, taking swimming lessons and knowing CPR.

On Tuesday, about 1,140 first-graders from four schools in Chandler, three in Gilbert and Mesa and two in Ahwatukee will participate in the 12th annual Water Safety Day at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, hosted by the Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s Water Watchers program.

The students will split into groups to watch a puppet show and a performance by a singing firefighter, make crafts, play carnival games and see firefighters, fire trucks and equipment from a dozen cities.

Druann Letter, a teacher at Kyrene de Cielo in Chandler, founded Water Watchers after her son Weston drowned in 1998 in the family swimming pool. He was almost 4.

“I was a very, very safety-conscious parent and I just thought it could never happen to me, and I think the majority of people we meet think the same thing,” Letter said.

There were reasons Letter thought Weston was safe: The child took swimming lessons. His father Tom is a firefighter and knew CPR. Weston always wore a life vest when they went to the lake.

A week after his death, Letter saw a news report of two toddler brothers who drowned, and she decided it was time to do something to educate children on water safety.

Now first-graders learn about water safety through a curriculum written by Letter, her fellow teachers at Cielo Elementary and Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Students complete six lessonson basic water safety, usually three before Water Safety Day and three after.

“The event’s really a reinforcement of the concepts they’ve already learned,” Isaacson said.

Meanwhile, Fulton Homes’ 11th annual “2 Seconds is Too Long” Water Safety Dayis April 2 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Kiwanis Park, Mill Avenue and All-America Way in Tempe. The carnival-themed event includes safety presentations, educational videos and demonstrations.

Free 20-minute private swimming lessons will also be available for babies and children of all ages from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. April 16 at Gold Medal Swim School, 6909 W. Ray Road, Suite 27, in Chandler. Call 480-961-7946 to register and book a time.

Families who show financial need with children under 6 who own their home and can’t afford a pool fence can call 602-631-4843 for an application.

CHANDLER, AZ – More than 1,000 first grade students will learn the ABC’s of water safety during the 12th annual Water Safety Day hosted by Chandler Gilbert Community College.

A large pool filled with warm water offers a fun way to spend a day outside the classroom, but the lessons learned Tuesday will likely save lives.

Each year, children in 100 Maricopa County die in water related accents. Twenty of them lose their lives in the water. Already this year, two children have lost their lives to drowning, and peak pool season hasn’t even begun.

Water Safety Day aims to change the statistics. The event is organized by Water Watchers, a program at Phoenix Children’s Hospital founded by Druann Letter.

Letter lost her young son, Weston, in 1998 when he drowned in his family’s swimming pool.

Today, Druann Letter keeps the memory of her son alive by showing others how to prevent such a tragedy.

During Water Safety Day, the children will learn how to be safe around water. They’ll learn rescue swimming techniques and how to look out for themselves and others.

The ABC’s of water safety summarizes it all.

“A” is for adult supervision. Children who have access to water should have eye to eye contact with adults at all times. “B” is for barrier. Fences and door locks act as a second line of defense by restricting a child’s access to the water. “C” is for classes. Adults should have current CPR training and children should have swimming lessons.

As the children begin to splash in the swimming pool, Druann Letter says she wants parents to know how quickly their children can slip away.

“It can happen so fast,” she said. “You’re never supposed to bury your children.”

Phoenix Children’s Hospital has more information on its website to keep families water safe.

GILBERT, Ariz. — A memorial service for a 3-year-old drowning victim will be at 3 p.m. Friday at Falconer Funeral Home, 251 W. Juniper Ave., in Gilbert.

A memorial fund called “The Nathaniel Fund” has been established at Bank of America to help the family with the funeral costs. The boy drowned in a pool at his grandparents’ home on Saturday.

As the days warm up, Southwest Valley fire departments and water-safety groups are reminding parents to keep an eye on their children around water.

Lori Schmidt, president of the Drowning Prevention Coalition of Arizona, said parents need to be vigilant watching their children near pools.

“It really becomes a supervision issue right now,” she said.

Southwest Valley fire departments are partnering with the coalition to promote its annual April Pools campaign and educate residents about how to stay safe around water.

Groups, including the Southwest Valley Family YMCA and Goodyear Fire Department, will visit elementary schools this month to teach students about water safety. The YMCA, in Goodyear, is holding free water-safety classes the week of April 11.

slideshow Swimming at the Southwest Valley Family YMCA in Goodyear

“It’s really a kickoff for summer . . . just to really stress the importance of water safety and the basic pool rules,” said Kristina Campbell, aquatics director at the YMCA.

Many parents get complacent and think a drowning incident won’t happen to them or their child, said Tanja Tanner, community education coordinator for the Goodyear Fire Department.

But parents need to watch their child and put up multiple barriers to the water, including a fence, locked door and net, she said.

“Kids will find a way to get to the water,” Tanner said. “It happens to everybody. . . . Just don’t let your guard down.”

There were six reported near drownings last year in the Southwest Valley, and no drownings, according to local fire departments. So far this year, there has been one near drowning in Buckeye.

Putting children in formal swim lessons at an early age is a good way for both parents and children to learn about water safety, Schmidt said.

“(Parents) start paying more attention to the ability of their child’s swimming,” she said. “They make sure that they have all of those layers of protection in place, and they tend less to believe in the drown-proofing than those who have taught their kid to swim.”

Goodyear, Buckeye and Tolleson offer swim lessons through their parks and recreation departments. The Goodyear YMCA offers year-round swim lessons for children and teenagers.

Campbell said it is vital for children to understand water-safety rules.

“It’s not so much you need to learn how to swim freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly. It’s more of the water-safety concept, knowing when it’s safe to be out there and what to do in an emergency,” she said.

Water incidents also happen to adults, and Schmidt said those often are fatal.

One of the six near drownings in the Southwest Valley last year was an adult, fire records show.

“A lot of our adults are swimming alone and we have a lot of adults who are swimming impaired – and that can be alcohol, recreational drugs, or it can be medication,” she said.

Schmidt said many adults don’t believe they could drown so they don’t take necessary safety measures. But people still need to be cautious.

“You need to use your brain. You’re not drown-proof either,” she said. “Make sure that somebody knows where you are and can help you if you’re in the water and get into trouble.”

The drowning rate for young children in Maricopa County has decreased over the last several years, despite an increase in the population, according to an annual report by the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Schmidt said the decrease indicates water-safety awareness efforts are working, but there still is more to do.

“Obviously, we’d like to get down to zero because drowning is 100 percent preventable. It’s not something that we have to endure every single year,” she said. “We just need to have people paying attention and taking advantage of the information that’s out there.”

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/swvalley/articles/2011/03/31/20110331southwest-valley-water-safety.html#ixzz1Kgapvjbo

More than 1,000 students went to college this week to learn water safety, while getting a day off from school, winning stuffed animals and inking their handprints under a pledge to watch water hazards.

The students came from Chandler, Mesa, Gilbert, Ahwatukee and the Salt-River Reservation to participate in the 12th annual Water Safety Day on Tuesday at Chandler-Gilbert Community College.

Among the games and activities was a poignant reminder: 20 pairs of children’s shoes representing children who drowned last year in Maricopa County.

The tiny shoes lined a walkway next to silhouettes of children’s faces, each standing for water-related incidents last year in the Valley. Of the 80 other children who nearly drowned, eight will have a lifelong disability. Some of those children become patients of Phoenix Children’s Hospital, which sponsors the event.

“It’s part of our injury-prevention center,” said Allison Otu, a spokeswoman for the hospital.

Students participated in a six-week class before attending Tuesday’s safety day. Drowning prevention education is aimed at first-graders because studies show they retain the message best, Otu said.

Drowning-prevention education appears to be working. The drowning rate has fallen to the lowest per capita in 20 years.

One child each from Chandler, Gilbert and five adults from Phoenix have died in water-related incidents in the first three months of 2011.

Water Watchers began in 1998 after 3-year-old Weston Letter died in his family’s swimming pool.

The annual water-safety day marks the kickoff to swimming season. Valley temperatures hit the high 90s this week.

At Tuesday’s safety day, emergency workers demonstrated water rescues. Students watched a puppet show, played carnival games and toured firetrucks.

They also recited the ABCs – adult supervision, barriers and classes – of drowning prevention with prodding from their teachers.

“I learned to be safe around water,” said Malachi Solomon, a 7-year-old first-grader at Islands Elementary School in Gilbert.

Ethan Alexander, a first-grader at Chandler Traditional Academy-Freedom campus, said he learned that water safety is “really important.”

Although his parents don’t have a swimming pool, Ethan said he wants a boat.

“I’m going to convince them,” he said.