As summer approaches, my entire Zanes Law team wants swimming pool safety to be something that everyone in Arizona thinks about. All swimming pool accidents are 100% preventable, so as summer approaches, I believe that it is extremely important to talk about swimming pool safety. We want to keep our children safe all summer long.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recommends that pool owners adopt swimming pool safety steps to prevent children from getting to the water when there is no adult supervision. To get started, ask yourself the questions listed below. Your answers to these questions will help you to evaluate the effectiveness of your water safety measures and to determine what steps need to be taken to prevent drowning injuries.
- Is there a fence around the perimeter of your pool or spa?
- Do you have self-closing and self-latching gates?
- Are there door, gate, or pool alarms in use?
- Does your pool have anti-entrapment drain covers that protect swimmers?
- Are all pool and spa covers in working order?
- Has someone in the family received CPR training?
- Has everyone learned to swim?
If you own a pool, you want your answer to all of the above questions to be “yes.” It is extremely important to understand that a child can drown in the time it takes to answer a telephone. Listed below are safety tips that you can adopt in order to make your pool or spa safe for children:
- Always watch your children when they are in or near a pool or spa
- Teach your children basic water safety tips
- Keep children away from pool drains, pipes and other openings to avoid entrapments
- Have a portable telephone close by when you or your family are using a pool or spa
- If a child is missing, look for him or her in the pool or spa FIRST
- Share safety instructions with family, friends and neighbors.
This information is just a start. I will add additional swimming pool safety information to my blog in the future because at Zanes Law, preventing accidents is just as important to us as helping those who have been hurt.
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