Water death tradgedies

Simply dreadful. do not know how you can stop it unless it becomes part of the school curriculum, the dangers of cold water in heatwaves even an experienced swimmer would drown. Those poor families my heart goes out tomthem.

I do believe those figures, I bet quite a few of us know somebody who has drowned, when river swimming was much more common. A boy in my class at primary school drowned at a local beauty spot when we were 10, and when I was a teenager, two little sisters from our village also drowned in the river whilst paddling.

I work in a secondary and the danger of open water is definitely one of the things we’ve covered in PSHE.

Jaxjacky

Sorry Mollygo x posting.

Great minds . . . 😄

I know it seems incredible!

It does!

Thank you for finding out.

Yes Fancythat per capita
It was worse in the 1950s and 60s.

Here's what I discovered:

Accidental water fatality has fallen by roughly 80% per capita since then

​Even when factoring in recent heatwaves, the modern peak spikes are vastly lower than a typical summer week sixty years ago.
Mid-century Britain simply did not have rescue services, swim literacy, beach lifeguards, or physiological understanding of "cold water shock" that we do today.

Approximately 2 deaths per 100,000 people in the 1950s and 1960s
Between 0.3 and 0.4 deaths per 100,000 people now

I know it seems incredible!

(^Old info from RoSPA and the Royal Life Saving Society and new data from The Water Incident Database which didn't exist then.^)

Here's the earlier thread too:
www.gransnet.com/forums/aibu/1358668-Sad-drowning-deaths

Whatever happened to parents getting in the water and teaching their own child to swim?

check not chack

Yes, please chack. I would be interested to know.

This is on another thread... water drownings are down 80% since the 1950s/60s.
I think this was per capita. Would have to check that though.

More awareness and more people can swim.

Sorry Mollygo x posting.

They may be taught to swim, but it’s education on cold water shock and no amount of education will change the bravado of young people. Similarly two people have died trying to rescue their dogs, the dogs survived.

Certainly there should be more publicity about ^cold water shock. I didn’t know about that till I joined a New Year’s Day swim.
But many children and teens ignore warnings or even worse, see them as a challenge.
They have the supreme confidence that they can cope and they won’t be in any danger.
One former headteacher used to do assemblies, warning of the dangers of electricity pylons and problems caused by the cross-currents and quicksands.
We still, over the years had occasional pupil deaths and for the luckier ones, claims that they had been rescued by the lifeboat.
Those claims always led to an assembly about the selfishness of making lifeboat crews risk their lives to save you from your own stupidity.

All School Children must have swimming lessons. My 9year old Granddaughter goes with her school every week to the local pool for lessons.
All primary schools must provide swimming instruction during either Key Stage 1 or Key Stage 2 (typically delivered between Years 3 and 6). Because it is a statutory requirement, parents cannot choose to withdraw their children from these lessons.

She also has lessons at the local pool which her parents pay for.

How can we make our children safe in the water if they don’t know their own capabilities.

We cant. In my opinion.

I live nearish to water.
I see far too many children lark about far too much around water.

Only thing I can think of to help, which may make a difference, is a National Government campaign.
Are these even done any more?

Ok I can’t spell TRAGEDIES