Save a child’s life at the pool

By Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

(Washington, DC)  —  With only a couple of weeks left before school starts many families will be spending time around the pool. Whether you are a Mom, Dad, or Grandparent, it’s important that you know how to keep your kids safe around the pool.

Every year, on average, 300 children ages 5 years or younger die in residential swimming pools around the country, and more than 3,000 are injured in near-drowning accidents.

Home pools and spas are so common now that drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in Florida of children ages 1 to 4. It’s been a dangerous year in South Florida’s swimming pools. Fourteen children under the age of ten have drowned this year, in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Tragedies like this don’t have to occur if parents take the proper safety measures.

This December, legislation I passed in Congress, the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, takes effect to try to end accidental childhood drowning. In addition to encouraging barriers, like a pool fence, to prevent children from wandering unsupervised into the pool, this law increases safety at swimming pools and spas by requiring all of them to have anti-entrapment drain covers. These new drain covers, as well as items like safety vacuum release systems, help to prevent children from being trapped underwater by the suction of a pool’s filtration system.

Miami resident Patsy Schmidt-Cozier knows only too well how important it is to install an anti-entrapment device on a pool. I had the chance to speak with Patsy several days after her 4-year-old daughter Rose became trapped, underwater, in their family pool. Luckily, Patsy was at the pool, watching her daughter and saw her daughter become entrapped. Patsy was able to jump in the pool and free her daughter and then perform CPR. After a brief stay in the hospital, Rose has been released and is doing well. There is no doubt that Patsy’s quick reaction, saved Rose’s life.

Unfortunately not all of these stories have a happy ending. Tragedy struck Miramar resident Shirley Harold’s family last March. Her 2-year-old great grandson, J’Mari Jeremiah Johnson wandered into the backyard and drowned. The pool did not have a fence around it. At a news conference to discuss the importance of pool safety, Shirley said that her family had purchased safety devices to protect J’Mari inside the house, but didn’t realize the need for a pool fence to protect J’Mari. She is now on a crusade to make sure other parents and grandparents don’t feel the pain that she and her family have gone through.

My new federal Pool and Spa Safety law creates a state incentive grant program to encourage states to enact their own pool and spa safety laws. I am proud to report that through my position on the House Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee, we were able to provide $2 million in funding for the state incentive grant program and $4 million for a pool safety education campaign in 2009. Many states, including Florida, have already expressed interest in applying for the grant program which will be administered by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Pool and child safety has been a top priority for me since I began my career in public service. Eight years ago, when I was in the Florida State Legislature I passed the Preston de Ibern/McKenzie Merriam Residential Swimming Pool Act. It requires that all new residential swimming pools built in Florida after October 1, 2000 be surrounded by one of four safety barriers: a pool safety fence, or a pool safety cover, or a self-closing, self-latching mechanism on the doors leading to the pool area or continuous-sounding door and window alarms on the doors and windows leading to the pool area. And yet even with all this security, parents have to be vigilant and know where their children are at all times.

Children see a pool and remember the fun they had playing in the pool the last time. They don’t understand that in less than two minutes, unsupervised, they can drown. They are too young to understand this, and must count on us to protect and watch over them. That’s why we have to watch our kids, and place barriers around our pools to prevent children from wandering unsupervised into the pool.