Reported by: Lynn Giroud
Photographed by: 9News
Web produced by: Neil Relyea
Many of us are spending these hot summer days by the pool.
but no matter how closely we watch little ones, they sometimes slip away – in seconds.
Near water, that can be deadly.
9News takes a look at a technique claiming young children, even babies, can learn to save themselves from drowning.
Just a few weeks ago, a two-year-old in Hebron, Ky., slipped away from his mother and was found face-down in the pool.
She was able to save him, but he was one of the lucky ones.
Drowning is one of the leading causes of death among children under four-years-old, second only to car accidents.
Can these infant swimming lessons help make a difference – and save young lives?
"Watch it, oh, good hit, run, run!"
Two-year-old Adam doesn't know how lucky he is to be running and laughing today.
"You're safe!"
But his mother does.
"The kids came in, that's why the gate wasn't locked."
"And I went down the hall to get him some clothes and heard the sliding glass door open."
"And I came out to the yard and called him and didn't see him and looked over the edge to see if he was somewhere in the yard and there he was floating face down in the pool."
"Boone County 911."
"My grandson fell in our pool."
"How long was he in the pool?"
"He couldn't have been in there a minute or two because he just went out."
While adam's grandmother called 911, Margery jumped in the pool and started CPR.
"And he coughed and I rolled him over come on baby breathe."
She saved his life.
It happens so quickly.
"It was less than two minutes."
But what would happen if a small child could learn to save herself?
In an incredible video, from Infant Swimming Resource, that's just what a little girl demonstrates.
Floating on her back, she knows to roll on back and float waiting for adult to rescue her.
"Let's go get the bar!(splashing)"
Kim Magella is a master instructor for infant swimming resource, or ISR, a much-debated method of teaching young children to survive a fall into the water.
"Good job!"
(Joey floats then rolls over, swims and floats again.)
Joey is three-years-old. He started these lessons when he was just one-years-old.
"With our neighborhood pool – and we have a pond behind our house – that it was just important for us to know that if something happened and it happens just like that even with you right next to them, that they're gonna be okay and he can make it and he can save himself," said Kristen Maier, a Mason mother.
In these classes, babies as young as six-months-old are taught how to "save themselves" if they fall into a pool.
Infants under one-years-old can roll over and float on their backs until help arrives.
"Once they can walk, they have the ability to learn to swim and float and swim and keep doing that sequence until they can get themselves to a point of safety," said Maier.
They even learn to float with the added weight of pants, long sleeve shirt and a diaper.
(Joey getting in water with clothes on.)
"That is very important, because most drowning accidents do not happen in a bathing suit, most children drown fully clothed," said Maier.
The parents say the classes provide them with peace of mind.
(Sophie, two-and-a-half-years-old, floating)
"Most of the programs at that age you just ring around the rosie, blow in their face and dunk them underwater and that doesn't teach them to save themselves if they fall in," said Jennifer VanRoekel, of Batavia and Sophie's mom.
"At this age, knowing she can float to the surface and be able to breathe until an adult can get her out of the pool is the key," said VanRoekel.
"I think it's extremely important," said Van Roekel. "I think it's for every child."
(he runs to her, she kisses and hugs him)
But remember Adam? Before his fall into the pool, he had swimming lessons, he knows to hold his breathe underwater – and can float.
But in an emergency, his mother worries. Just like Adam, children this young won't remember what they've been taught – and panic..
"He knows to hold his breathe, he fell in, he didn't know how he was going to get out, he had breathed in water, they panic," she said.
"Swimming skills, floating skills do not replace constant adult supervision."
"It's another layer of protection just like the fence around your pool, pool alarms, locks on the doors, a phone out by the pool because you never know when an accident's gonna happen."
The American Academy of Pediatrics has weighed-in on this issue, saying children are generally not developmentally ready for formal swimming lessons until after their fourth birthday.
It goes on to make a couple recommendations:
- Parents should not feel secure that their child is safe from drowning, after participation in such programs;
- and, whenever infants and toddlers are in or around water, an adult should be within arm's length.
For more information on infant swimming lessons or CPR classes, see "Related Links" above.
