Swimming Pool Safety

[LSUTiger]

A friend of mine's 6 yr son almost drowned yesterday in their community swimming pool. This happened with his mother standing in the pool nearby right next to the life guard on duty.

She saw him go purposely go under but when he did not come back up and she saw him motionless on the bottom of the pool she alerted the life guard who dove in an pulled him out and performed chest compressions. He was unconscious and his lips were blue. Water and blood came out of his nose and mouth and he was revived. It was about a 1 1/2 minutes from the time he went under until the life guard had him breathing again. The EMT's arrived on scene and took him to the hospital where he stay the night for observation and is going home today. All is well.

PRAISE JESUS!

To the life guard's credit he saved the kids life.

Lesson learned, watch your kids in the pool at all times and don't rely on solely on the life guards to spot trouble. Things happen fast. Chest compressions only techniques are as effective as mouth to mouth/chest compression CPR and definitely better than nothing.

With summer here its time to brush up on CPR skills.

http://www.redcross.org/lp/cpr-first-ai ... aQodPJgKhQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/28/ch ... pressions/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jmra]

Glad to hear the child will be ok.
I've never relied on the life guard to watch my kids. When they were young, the pool was a place for the kids to have fun and for me to be a watchful and observant parent. I never let my guard down. I could always enjoy to pool later after the kids were done.
I'm curious, did the mother not know how to swim? My immediate reaction would have been to get the kid myself instead of alerting someone else.

[LSUTiger]

Glad to hear the child will be ok.
I've never relied on the life guard to watch my kids. When they were young, the pool was a place for the kids to have fun and for me to be a watchful and observant parent. I never let my guard down. I could always enjoy to pool later after the kids were done.
I'm curious, did the mother not know how to swim? My immediate reaction would have been to get the kid myself instead of alerting someone else.

No, unfortunately the mother did not know how to swim.

Good point! Another lesson learned: Learn how to swim.

[Vol Texan]

Glad to hear all worked out OK for the family.

Glad to hear the child will be ok.
I've never relied on the life guard to watch my kids. When they were young, the pool was a place for the kids to have fun and for me to be a watchful and observant parent. I never let my guard down. I could always enjoy to pool later after the kids were done.
I'm curious, did the mother not know how to swim? My immediate reaction would have been to get the kid myself instead of alerting someone else.

I'm of the same mindset. The lifeguard is there to watch all the swimmers, but I'm there to watch my kid.

But this brings up an interesting CHL question. Just last night I was at our neighborhood pool (part of the HOA, so not open to all public), sipping some tea with the neighbor as we watched our kids swimming. We have two pools - one is manned by lifeguards and is only open when the lifeguards are present, and the other one is Swim at Your Own Risk (SAYOR). We were at the SAYOR pool, with no lifeguards, and only parents watching the kids.

Naturally, I had my SigSauer at my side. If I'd have had to jump in to help one of the kids, would disarming first be considered 'intentionally displaying'?

No...I'm not thinking of 'saving the gun'. I trained as a lifeguard as a kid, and I remember that you stand a better chance on a rescue if you're not burdened by such things as clothing, etc. to weigh you down. We even did 'disrobing drills' (down to a bathing suit) to see if we could lose our long sleeve shirt, shoes, and long pants in a hurry before jumping in. I'm not that teenage lifeguard anymore, and while I can still swim well, I'm not the swimmer I was back then. I need all the advantage that I can give myself before doing something like that anymore. So...I have to assume that even if I kept on my cargo shorts and t-shirt, I'd likely be better off jumping into the 12' deep end without a couple of pounds of steel on my side.

Dropping the gun on the table or on the deck seems like it would take minimal time. I'm not worried about the neighbor - he has a CHL as well. If it were just a bunch of other kids running around, I'd not even consider this. The property is not officially 'mine', although it is a locked fence on community owned property.

Just curious what are the thoughts of the wiser ones here. Jump in with it, or drop it on the grass first?

[LSUTiger]

Glad to hear all worked out OK for the family.

Glad to hear the child will be ok.
I've never relied on the life guard to watch my kids. When they were young, the pool was a place for the kids to have fun and for me to be a watchful and observant parent. I never let my guard down. I could always enjoy to pool later after the kids were done.
I'm curious, did the mother not know how to swim? My immediate reaction would have been to get the kid myself instead of alerting someone else.

I'm of the same mindset. The lifeguard is there to watch all the swimmers, but I'm there to watch my kid.

But this brings up an interesting CHL question. Just last night I was at our neighborhood pool (part of the HOA, so not open to all public), sipping some tea with the neighbor as we watched our kids swimming. We have two pools - one is manned by lifeguards and is only open when the lifeguards are present, and the other one is Swim at Your Own Risk (SAYOR). We were at the SAYOR pool, with no lifeguards, and only parents watching the kids.

Naturally, I had my SigSauer at my side. If I'd have had to jump in to help one of the kids, would disarming first be considered 'intentionally displaying'?

No...I'm not thinking of 'saving the gun'. I trained as a lifeguard as a kid, and I remember that you stand a better chance on a rescue if you're not burdened by such things as clothing, etc. to weigh you down. We even did 'disrobing drills' (down to a bathing suit) to see if we could lose our long sleeve shirt, shoes, and long pants in a hurry before jumping in. I'm not that teenage lifeguard anymore, and while I can still swim well, I'm not the swimmer I was back then. I need all the advantage that I can give myself before doing something like that anymore. So...I have to assume that even if I kept on my cargo shorts and t-shirt, I'd likely be better off jumping into the 12' deep end without a couple of pounds of steel on my side.

Dropping the gun on the table or on the deck seems like it would take minimal time. I'm not worried about the neighbor - he has a CHL as well. If it were just a bunch of other kids running around, I'd not even consider this. The property is not officially 'mine', although it is a locked fence on community owned property.

Just curious what are the thoughts of the wiser ones here. Jump in with it, or drop it on the grass first?

That brings up another question, carry at pool and don't swim or don't carry at the pool and swim with the kids? I don't want to leave a weapon unattended at the pool so it's usually one or the other for me, rarely do I have a non swimming guest I can trust to watch my stuff. Not that I'm comfortable doing that anyway. But I my wife and some friends have CHL so even if they don't carry they can at least baby sit my other "kid".

[jmra]

Glad to hear all worked out OK for the family.

Glad to hear the child will be ok.
I've never relied on the life guard to watch my kids. When they were young, the pool was a place for the kids to have fun and for me to be a watchful and observant parent. I never let my guard down. I could always enjoy to pool later after the kids were done.
I'm curious, did the mother not know how to swim? My immediate reaction would have been to get the kid myself instead of alerting someone else.

I'm of the same mindset. The lifeguard is there to watch all the swimmers, but I'm there to watch my kid.

But this brings up an interesting CHL question. Just last night I was at our neighborhood pool (part of the HOA, so not open to all public), sipping some tea with the neighbor as we watched our kids swimming. We have two pools - one is manned by lifeguards and is only open when the lifeguards are present, and the other one is Swim at Your Own Risk (SAYOR). We were at the SAYOR pool, with no lifeguards, and only parents watching the kids.

Naturally, I had my SigSauer at my side. If I'd have had to jump in to help one of the kids, would disarming first be considered 'intentionally displaying'?

No...I'm not thinking of 'saving the gun'. I trained as a lifeguard as a kid, and I remember that you stand a better chance on a rescue if you're not burdened by such things as clothing, etc. to weigh you down. We even did 'disrobing drills' (down to a bathing suit) to see if we could lose our long sleeve shirt, shoes, and long pants in a hurry before jumping in. I'm not that teenage lifeguard anymore, and while I can still swim well, I'm not the swimmer I was back then. I need all the advantage that I can give myself before doing something like that anymore. So...I have to assume that even if I kept on my cargo shorts and t-shirt, I'd likely be better off jumping into the 12' deep end without a couple of pounds of steel on my side.

Dropping the gun on the table or on the deck seems like it would take minimal time. I'm not worried about the neighbor - he has a CHL as well. If it were just a bunch of other kids running around, I'd not even consider this. The property is not officially 'mine', although it is a locked fence on community owned property.

Just curious what are the thoughts of the wiser ones here. Jump in with it, or drop it on the grass first?

That brings up another question, carry at pool and don't swim or don't carry at the pool and swim with the kids? I don't want to leave a weapon unattended at the pool so it's usually one or the other for me, rarely do I have a non swimming guest I can trust to watch my stuff.

And this would be why we have a pool at the house

[WildBill]

Glad to hear the child will be ok.
I've never relied on the life guard to watch my kids. When they were young, the pool was a place for the kids to have fun and for me to be a watchful and observant parent. I never let my guard down. I could always enjoy to pool later after the kids were done.
I'm curious, did the mother not know how to swim? My immediate reaction would have been to get the kid myself instead of alerting someone else.

No, unfortunately the mother did not know how to swim.

Good point! Another lesson learned: Learn how to swim.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but when I graduated from high school in California, one of the requirements to get a diploma was to pass a basic swimming test.

At the time, I thought the requirement was very strange, but it does teach a basic survival skill that all people should have.

I did pass the test, but I am not a lifeguard.