Earlier this summer, Carlee Hughes of the Arrow and Slocan Community Services put out a call to the community through the Nakusp Communicator to gauge interest in potential children’s swimming lessons.
There were many interested at that time, with almost 60 children listed as potential participants.
However, as time went by, the reality of the distance and of the time commitment set in. The 35-km drive each way on top of the class time would mean the total time spent each day would be 90 minutes for many.
For her part, Hughes’ dire concern about her children acquiring this life-saving skill made her take this project on seven years ago on behalf of the whole community. She drove daily her three children to Revelstoke and back for two weeks last summer, to make sure they are water-ready.
“We live by a lake. Water safety is a must. There were four youth who drowned in New Denver some years ago, a few weeks shy of graduation. This is not about pass or fail, this is about gaining skills. Some people drive to Nelson for this,” she said.
In their 2016 report, the Life Saving Society (LSS) wrote, “Recreational activities continue to account for almost two thirds of all water-related fatalities (61 per cent). An average of 289 people drowned in Canada each year while recreating in, on or near the water.
The most common recreational activities were swimming (26 per cent), and walking, running, or playing near water or on ice (16 per cent). Power boating (11 per cent) and fishing from a boat (9 per cent) were also common recreational activities engaged in by drowning victims. In 2013 alone, 179 people (38 per cent) drowned while engaged in one of these four activities.”
Hughes has been working with the Aquatics Program and the Manager of the Community Services out of Nelson to bring these courses closer and keep the fees as low as possible. Despite their efforts, the registration was dim by the time the courses were supposed to start, so they were cancelled altogether.
“There were nine children registered, three of them mine and another, a niece of ours,” Hughes sighed.
She points to education as the best tool to prevent accidents. The LSS’ 2016 report indicates that “drowning prevention education efforts directed at parents with young children appear to be having an impact. There had been a long-term trend towards decreasing death rates among children less than five years of age in Canada. This trend continued in 2009-2013 as the death rate in this age group was down eight per cent from 1.2 in 2004-2008.”
With more than half of the summer ahead, Hughes is exploring other avenues for enabling these lessons to continue, with one option being the lake itself, since that is where these skills would be needed.
The registration process used to be more onerous for everyone involved — especially the coordinator — but now it is all done online.
