BEWARE OF

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WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

‘DROWNING’ EQUIPMENT

Note That in Each One of These
Needless Tragedies some Kind

Editor's Note:

The following article
from the National Safety Council's
magazine “Family Safety’ to warn
readers of the Western Canadian Lum-
ber Worker of the danger of relying
on flotation equipment as a safe sub-
stitute for proper supervision while loved
ones are engaged in water sports.

By DWIGHT CRUM

Captain, Los Angeles County Lifeguard
Service, with Arlene and Howard
Eisenberg

is reprinted

I get a sinking feeling when, driv-
ing along Santa Monica Boulevard,
I pull up at a red light beside a
stationwagon piled high with kids in
front, and with swim rings, inner
tubes, sea horses and air mattresses.
in back. I fervently hope on such
occasions that they’re headed for a
beach where community ordinances
will prevent their use of that float-
ing equipment. If they aren’t, they
may be headed for disaster.

Consider These

Recent Reports

Lake Ronkonboma, Long Island.
Frank Cannone, age 9, slipped out
of inner tube and drowned.

Huntington Beach, California.
Louis -Saenz, floating on inflated
surf mattress, slipped off mat and
drowned.

Miami, Florida. Stanley Burowski,
age 9, using face mask in public
pool, panicked, swallowed water and
drowned.

Sandusky, Ohio. A 13-year-old
boy slipped from a plastic air mat-
tress and slid beneath the choppy
surface of Lake Erie. Skin-divers re-
covered the body.

Note that in each one of these
needless tragedies some kind of

“swimming equipment” was _ in-
volved.
In the past five years, some

52,000,000 people have swam in the
12 miles of Pacific ocean-front
Waters under Los Angeles County
Lifeguard Service jurisdiction.
Thanks to the vigilance and skill of
our 200-man staff, plus some phen-
omenal luck, we have lost only
four bathers in that five years. But
—that is four too many. Since three
of the four drownings were directly
attributable to the use of so-called
swimming aids, at our Redondo
Beach headquarters floating equip-
ment has earned the nickname of
“drowning equipment.”

Drowning Rate
Will Jump

But the popularity of this equip-
ment reaches new heights each sum-
mer. Ralph Kuhli, public safety
director of the National Safety
Council, points out that its misuse
causes many senseless and easily
preventable drownings.

Says American National Red
Cross Water safety authority Rich-
ard L, Brown, “The use of certain
flotation devices has reached the
stage where if more isn't done to
safeguard the users, the drowning
rate will jump well above the usual
6500 tragedies a year.”

Flotation equipment is, of course,
no threat to the swimmer capable
of stroking several hundred yards if
he slides off a wet mattress, or is
bitcked off his surfboard by a wave.
Unfortunately, according to Red
Cross estimates, fewer than 12 per
cent of our approximately 100 mil-

lion bathers possess even fair swim-

ming ability.

a False Sense

Or %
Of Security

To the other 88 million Ameri-
cans, flotation equipment poses an
unintentional but insidious dual
‘threat. Serving as a convenient
“crutch,” it makes it possible for
or non-swimmer to have
without “all that bother” of
imming lessons. And, by giving
a false sense of security, it
him out of his depth and
a candidate for another

that you or

Of “Swimming Equipment’ was Involved

waterplay devices, or are thinking
of picking up one or two next time
you go for a swim. Since what you
don’t know about them can drown
you, here is what you must know.

Foam kick-boards. I have night-
mares about this one. Last summer,
before our ordinances had been ex-
tended to cover foam as well as the
other inflated equipment, one of the
local discount stores ran a well-ad-
vertised special. The following
week-end the water was white with
kick-boards, with their users’ ages
averaging six. To make matters
worse, we had a bad rip-tide at
Torrance beach that ran from dry
sand to about 200 yards off-shore.

A total of 165 children were res-
cued in one three-hour period, the
majority of them using floating
equipment. In one rescue effort, I
pulled in 13 kids who had lost their
grips on their “drowning boards.”
They were either sailing seaward in
the rip, or, in the case of four chil-
dren, already limp on the bottom.
At an unguarded beach, that after-
noon could have set an all-time
disaster record.

Kick-Boards Spell
Trouble

Kick-boards do not belong in
oceans or lakes, but in pools, under
proper supervision, they can be val-
uable in developing the beginner’s
swimming kick..Even there, the
union of kids and kick-boards can
spell trouble. Last summer Caroline
Kennedy, using a cork kickboard,
floated out over her head and lost
her grip on the board. Only a quick
action by a guest, who jumped in
fully dressed, saved the President’s
4-year-old daughter.

Surfboards. Surfboards are great
fun and provide all the physical val-
ues that go with participation in
athletics. Because of this, we per-
mit their use at certain hours and
in certain non-bathing areas. But
they must meet minimum. safety
standards, which means weight of
at least 25 to 30 pounds and fiber-
glass reinforcement. Foam without
reinforcement lacks strength. Some
boards have sharp, foot-long metal
skegs on the under surface, meant
to act like the keel of a ship. When
they hit something — or someone —
at full tilt, they act as an axe as
well.

50 Youngsters
Saved

Prior to 1950, surfboards weighed
80 to 110 pounds and only the
strong, skilled swimmer could
handle one. But today they are light
enough to invite use by weak swim-
mers. From January through April
last year — our “unbusy” season
— our guards rescued some 50
youngsters who had fallen off their
boards. Some were struck on the

head as they fell and were help-’

less. And others got their first swim-
ming lesson when dumped in waters
10 to 20 feet deep, We recommend
that parents require their children
to swim 300 yards without stopping
before granting permission to use a
surfboard.

Surf mats and air mattresses.
Many types of inflated mattresses
are lugged to our beaches, but we
allow only those that meet our
safety code to be used in the surf.
A surf mat must be durable rubber-
ized canvas which will neither
buckle nor puncture, and be equip-
ped with a safety rope. The rubber-
ized canvas offers a non-skid sur-
face that will not become ice-slick
when wet and skid its rider into
the drink—a cause of many near-
drownings in deep water and more
than a few dislocations and broken
necks in the shallows.

signed not for surf-riding but for
camping. These light-gauge vinyls
and the bargain surplus one-man
rafts look like great fun hanging on
the wall in a store display. But
when hit by even a small wave, they
too often take this same perpen-
dicular position in lakes or oceans.
They are no safer in swimming
pools. A sunbather lolling on a mat
may easily by overturned and in-
jured by the diver or swimmer
coming up beneath him. The swim-
mer, unexpectedly blocked from the
surface and air, is in trouble, too.
One hotel pool director told me,
“Kids on mats were always drifting
under the diving board just as the
diver came, down. It got so I was
taking too many kids to the hospi-
tal, so I banned them.”

Auto inner tubes, and their 101
colorful and attractive modern in-
flated vinyl variations—sea horses,
sea dragons, swim rings, etc.—can
be deadly. The old inner tube you
no longer trust on the family car
should never be entrusted with the
life of a member of your family in

‘The most hazard-fraught mats in the water. There have been 13
the surf are the dollar wie ms e involving inner tubes in

DAR aM pores oa

~ eS

Tennessee Valley Authority lakes
in the past five years. One report
reads: “Slipped from inner tube and
never seen alive again.” Another:
“Victims (two young women) last
seen floating on tractor inner tube
in 8 feet of water.” And another:
“Tube floating on water, but boy
not in sight.”

A non-swimmer can sit in a tube
in shallow water, and without any
skill at all paddle to deep water—
where he is a cinch to flip over at
the first small wave, or slightest
shift of his weight.

Swim rings of all kinds, both in-
flatable and foam, offer similar op-
portunities for self-destruction, For
youngsters in pools they are com-
pletely safe only when an alert adult
is within arm’s reach. They are just
too easy to slide out of, or off.

Face masks. Recently a father
who knew his son's enthusiasm for
a TV skindiver show gave him a
faceplate of an inexpensive type.
The day the boy tried his gift out
in a pool, the lifeguard on duty
could not possibly have noticed that
one moment there were 200 kids’

n

at

and the next moment only 199. The
boy was found much later, at the
bottom, with his mask and lungs
full of water. Mistakenly, he had
tried to breathe, had panicked,
shipped water, and, with potential
rescuers all about him, drowned.

In another case, a 5-year-old,
alone with a mask, lost his life
without even stepping into the
water. The mask, intended to cover
only eyes and nose, slipped over
his mouth, forming an _ air-tight
seal. The child, too weak to break
the seal by yanking off the mask,
suffocated.

Without Hitting
Panic Button

These two cases are typical of
those which have led to the ban-
ning of face masks in most public
pools. But risk is minimized when
a child receives face-mask instruc-
tion from a YMCA, the Red Cross,
or a qualified instructor. Learning so
simple a thing as how to swallow a
little water without hitting the panic
button can be the difference between
a bit of a scare and a drowning.

Face masks should be fitted by a
competent clerk. Hand-me-downs
and family “sharing” are risky, since
obviously one mask will not give
the same vital perfect seal to an
apple-cheeked 10-year-old and a
lean-faced adult. One conscientious
manufacturer prints several rules
worth noting on his face mask pack-
aging: “This mask is not a breathing
device. Never cover the mouth.
Never use for diving into the water,
in rough surf, in crowded pools, or
for bodily contact play.” I’d add
another: Never let a small child use

a face mask alone, even in the bath-
tub!

Even To The
Professional

The field of standards on swim
equipment is virtually a vacuum.
The danger of this vacuum—even
to the professional—was hammered
home to me several months ago
when one of our guards swam out
to a rescue with a new foam rescue
can which had performed well on
12 missions. On this unlucky 13th,
it seemed to absorb water and,-with-
out warning, sank. The guard had
to tow three hysterical victims to
shore without it.

You can keep your family safe,
while not denying them the fun of
water sports equipment, by follow-
ing these rules:

Everyone Learn
To Swim

1. Have everyone learn to swim!
Don't think that five to ten strokes
makes a swimmer. Drowning sta-
tistics indicate that this kind of
“swimmer” is the one who gets into
trouble fastest. Swimming lessons
are the best possible life-time mar-
ine insurance for your loved ones,
and they are free at many Y’s,
schools, and other community or-
ganizations, which are now co-oper-
ating with the new National Safety
Council “Everyone Learn to Swim”
campaign. Realize that flotation
equipment is a handicap rather than
a help in teaching youngsters to
swim. Let the child have it only
after he’s learned to swim well.

2. Have everyone learn to tread
water! To my mind, this is the most
overlooked yet most valuable life-
saver outside the life jacket. Even a —
non-swimmer can learn to tread
water for 15 to 20 minutes, and as
little as 60 to 90 seconds can be the
difference between life and death.

3. If you know you are a poor
swimmer but know, too, you'll never
get around to taking lessons, wear
flotation equipment if you must, but
wear a Coastguard-approved life _
belt with it. : oe

Remember! Don’t use
equipment where