Pools are a part of California’s landscape, but residential pools have a dangerous side when it comes to young children.
Drowning is the second leading cause of death for California children 1 to 4 years old, behind birth defects, according to both the federal Centers for Disease Control and the state Department of Public Health.
And most of those drownings occur in home swimming pools. Young children drown when they are able to access a backyard pool without a parent or other adult realizing it; others survive the drowning event only to be left with a life-long disability because of brain damage.
It’s easy, but wrong, to blame the drowning on the failure of supervision. One thing the injury prevention field knows all too well is that supervision necessarily fails — just because we are human.
Drowning happens silently and within minutes. I know this far too well. I lost my 2-year-old daughter, Samira, and nearly lost my 14-month-old son, JJ, to a backyard pool drowning incident.
They had slipped out of contact with their babysitter, exited our back door and were found just a few minutes later, together, floating in the pool. Resuscitation efforts were not able to save Samira, but did revive JJ, although by the time he was resuscitated he had suffered irreparable severe brain damage.
JJ is with us today but is institutionalized. He has not talked or walked since he drowned, even though he is now 40 years old. Just imagine.
I started the Drowning Prevention Foundation in 1985 to help make sure other children, parents, families and pool owners do not suffer what my family suffered. Since then, we have continuously advocated for pool safety measures, such as four-sided fencing, and pool and door alarms to help reduce the risk of backyard drowning.
The foundation fully supports a new law, SB 442, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, that took effect Jan. 1. The law updates the Swimming Pool Safety Act to require two safety barriers, instead of one, to help keep children from accessing pools and/or to alert parents if a young child gets into the pool area alone. It’s the toughest standard in the nation.
This approach enhances pool safety; it does not take the place of active supervision. The law affects new pools, pools being updated and pools associated with a home sale.
SB 442 was sponsored by a large choir of public and private organizations working together, and represents the latest effort on California’s part to end drowning incidents for our young children. Prior to the SB 442 update of California’s Pool Safety Act, we had not instituted public health lessons learned from other settings where children are at risk.
Multiple safety barriers are a proven public health strategy that works. For example, we are familiar with multiple safety barriers used in vehicles (seat belts, safety seats, safety glass, airbags and crumple zones), foods (list of ingredients, allergy alerts, packaging, expiration dates), cross walks (signs, paintings on the ground, lights, noises) and homes (fire barrier construction requirements, smoke alarms, electrical appliance standards, grounded wiring and ground-fault circuit receptacles).
Backyard pool drowning is preventable. SB 442 addresses one part of the drowning prevention puzzle — multiple safety barriers to prevent a child accessing a pool unsupervised by an adult. The other parts of the drowning prevention puzzle we all need to support are water safety, swimming skills, and rescue and resuscitation knowledge.
One child drowning in a backyard pool is too many.
Nadina Riggsbee is president and founder of the Drowning Prevention Foundation. She lives in Benicia.
