At The Pool

Ahead of a warm weekend, I just wanted to remind everyone about the importance of watching your kids at the pool.

A few weeks ago my family was there on a weekend when it was pretty quiet. My 10 year old, who has had years of swimming lessons but can't swim more than about 12 metres, was standing outside the deep end of the big pool with his friend who is a good swimmer. I assumed he knew his limits, but when I next looked over for him, I noticed he was in the water, about 12 metres from the deep end edge and equally far away from the other edges. I walked over quickly to him and when he saw me, he said, "Help!"

The only lifeguard I could see was at the shallow end of the pool, and despite me yelling out as loud as I could (and I have a loud voice), "Lifeguard! Help!" and waving my arms above my head, she didn't hear me. I was so panicked I didn't even think to tell him to float on his back or to jump in myself. Luckily, his friend who is a good swimmer had also noticed and also luckily had an inflatable toy they had been playing with, and he took it to him and they swam to the edge.

It was one of those truly horrible moments every parent wants to forget but can't help thinking, What if I hadn't looked over when I did? The lessons I take from it about parental supervision are:

• Don't assume your child knows their limits and keep an eye on them unless you know they can swim at least 20-25 metres ie. to an edge/lane rope/shallow end
• Explain to your child that they can float on their back if they are in trouble

This is especially important since the pool management has told me that their ratio of patrons to lifeguards is 80 to 1, which is better than the required 100 to 1. Given that the Olympic pool site is physically so big, on quieter days, it makes sense for the one lifeguard to stand near the shallow end of the big pool so they are also close to the wading and small pools, but this means they can't hear calls for help from the deep end of the big pool. This was exacerbated by the radio being played over the speakers at the time, something I have suggested should not happen for this reason.

The pool is a great community asset, I just wanted to remind everyone about the importance of being vigilant because I would hate the same thing to happen to anyone else.