Heatwave water deaths - campaign required

It's been particularly bad this week because water is colder in an early heatwave and it was in the half term

I do always wonder how people drown if they can swim. It's not like the Thames has big waves and tides. Did they get cold-water shock?

The RNLI says 15C is where cold water shock begins.

I think we need

• more swimming pools (especially outdoor pools) - then more people have the option to cool down in a lifeguarded pool. The need to cool off in water is a very primal one

• swimming lessons for all children through school. One of mine had no school swimming lessons. One only had about 3 (obviously I paid for them to have lots of lessons but not everyone can do that).

• if there are known lakes where there are issues then paying for patrols

• adults who see stupid behaviour having the guts to speak up - I live near the coast and if I see teens swimming in a spot I know is dangerous I go and speak to them. They do actually listen! But most adults just post a moan about it on Facebook instead

We are in the Lea valley park (north out of London) and every single body of water - and there are a lot - has permanent signs saying do not enter the water. And warnings. And do not go on the ice. I’ve heard a lot this year about water deaths so I agree there are campaigns but like lots of things people don’t think it will happen to them. It’s always so sad.

"the youth of today" is also the youth since time began. Kids do stupid things.
No, they don't deserve to die from it, but they always have done since time immemorial.
We can't stop humans being humans in every instance.
ETA. I grew up on the Thames and we were all taught how dangerous it was. Didn't stop a school friend deciding to swim home from the pub one evening, aged about 17, and drowning on the way.

Unfortunately I do think this is another area that has been squeezed to the bones because of money , and the first ones to suffer are the teenage boys who listen to no one.

but unfortunately schools do the absolute bare minimum regarding swim lessons (not because it isn’t important, but because they don’t have any money at all - TA S are covering cleaning after school where I am as we no longer have a caretaker- and a massive amount of parents won’t make a contribution (interestingly it’s never the parents you would expect) so they can only do the minimum and kids are not learning to swim)

in addition the current teenagers where about 9/10? During peek covid , swimming lessons where cancelled for a long long time , and I have a feeling a few never went back.

also I don’t think the emphasis is put on the importance of swimming lessons any more (generally) and its viewed as a nice extra curricular activity, that sadly a lot of families can’t afford or choose other things instead.

sadly as with the vast vast majority of things , it all links back to money

I remember when at secondary school, this would be about late 60s, we had to go to the local swimming baths where we had swimming lessons and we had to take a pair of pyjamas with us that we had to swim in and do a width of the pool with a teacher supervising us one to one.

All the kids had to be able to swim back then, I could swim already thanks to my mum and dad as we lived overseas when young but lots of the kids in my year couldn't.

The pool was outdoors, it was a big pool too and was really cold.

Probably a really good lesson in how much harder it would be to swim in clothing if you fell or jumped in the water, sea/river/canal etc.

Well they have the Donald Pleasance ad in the can, excellent little bit of film with retro charm - worst case they could just put it out on TV and on-line.

I completely agree. I’m still terrified of getting electrocuted on a pylon! The problem is that so many parents would moan their child is traumatised and how dare school risk upsetting their child. I work in a primary school. A new member of staff recently said to me that they were shocked at the behaviour of parents and they had no idea how much some parents complain and make our lives difficult.

absolutely this.

ermmmm? parents? Mind you locally its a thing to jump off a local dual lane A road overpass into the tidal river below and has been for at least the 30 years I have lived here, and some 50 years ago when i lived in London, it used to be a thing for boys to jump off some of the Thames bridges andf one boy I know broke his neck doing it. I guess its like the young drivers thing, there will always be (mainly) young men who think they are immortal.

Overall numbers of drownings since the 80s have roughly halved, although I couldn’t find stats on this particular type. There is already multiple sources of information giving the same messages, particularly in a heat wave.

while I don’t disagree that this is tragic, there needs some specific thought on how you get these across so they land.

Teenage boys brains are wired to be attracted to risk. Its why they behave as they do.
Add in group dynamics,bravado and lager and any thought of 'that's stupid, we shouldn't do that' goes out of the window. Its why so many of them wrap their cars around trees.
I live near Malvern. We have Gullett quarry. A young man drowned because it's a deep quarry and the water is unbelievably cold. There are fences and sign after sign about the danger. I dare say there have been young men up there over half term trying to break in.

Swim lessons and education around the dangers of swimming are vital but signs of drowning also need to be taught. Movies have made us think it is yelling for help and flailing around but it is not. If everyone was aware of the signs they could get help quicker or assist in getting the person out the water if safe to do so.

Parents job.

Running on fumes. SATS, utter waste of time.

It's the ones who CAN swim that tend to take the risks, though!

They worked because we never saw any other images or films like them. Now we can go online and see the most graphic images of bodies being blown apart in wars (if we seek it out). Public broadcasts won't have the same impact because they'll be too vanilla.

There are also campaigns against Tombstoning

although These are usually local

https://www.marketingweek.com/campaign-warns-against-tombstoning/

https://www.rospa.com/water-safety/tombstoning

https://www.mhpa.co.uk/latest-news-blog/port-takes-action-to-tackle-tombstoning/

Swimming lessons would be more useful if they taught swimming for health, safety and lifesaving.
In my day, 80's, we didn't have to muck around with getting our dolphin and butterfly strokes. That was ignored and we just did a decent crawl and breaststroke for 15 mins, treading water for ages (not the pissy 1 minute they get kids to do now) and lifesaving skills.

Most swim curriculums seem to be about spotting the next Olympians rather than getting kids strong and water safe for life.

So that’s that then? It’s expensive so we won’t bother?

The money used to develop and administer SATs might be a good place to start.

A campaign by a mother after her son died from cold water shock on a hot day has lead to this being taught in schools (not sure if this has started yet) it’s called Doing It for Dylan her determination and hard work to get this far has been relentless

it’s so sad and she isn’t the only mother campaigning because their child has died in similar circumstances

I agree that teenage boys are often reckless but if the messages get through to just a few then that could potentially save a life

I feel like a slow-burn message from primary would be no bad thing. We seemed to spend huge amounts of time at primary in the 90s learning about road safety, farm safety (ritual area), not playing on ice, even not dropping litter. We just don't have time to do that now because we're too busy teaching 9 year olds the difference between the perfect and continuous tenses or about improper fractions. I always talk to my class about not playing on ice and feel like it's my personal crusade in the winter but there's no requirement for that sort of thing at all and there's no time for actual lessons on it, just snatched conversations when really you should be doing something else.

I still remember the awful warningfilms they showed in the early 80s, still petrified of farms, crossing railway lines and swimming in anything other than a pool. They worked. https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/cv2g0jvdvexo