Toddler drowns at health club pool - apportioning blame ?

[thetideishigh]

This article really resonated with me on a couple of levels

metro.co.uk/2020/02/11/dad-boy-3-drowned-david-lloyd-pool-says-death-prevented-12218854/.

When my kids were little I insisted that any swimming trips involved 2 adults as I'm not a strong swimmer myself and my dh was lax in his alertness to danger when in sole charge of just two kids ("daddy daycare" was responsible for ALL of our trips to A & E for the kids up to the age of 7).

One of my dc qualified and worked (only part time) as a lifeguard from the age of 16 + 1/2. They were a very serious/responsible child, with the maturity of someone much older according to their teachers and other independent adult observations.

Their younger sibling now also wants to train as a lifeguard so that they can earn a little extra money. They are fairly mature for their age so I was inclined to say yes to funding the training until I read the linked article.

It's set me wondering whether 16/17 year olds are too young for lifeguarding (although my dc is currently more responsible in their attitude to life stuff than a great many 18-21 year olds I know.

I also wonder how the dad came to lose sight of the 3 year old for long enough for him to wander off and fall in to the main pool. I never relaxed at the pool with the kids until they were better swimmers than me. I was a constant personal lifeguard to them on such trips but mostly because of my fears, not because of their behaviour.

What do people think ?

I also can't see where the lifeguard is being blamed. He specifically says there are problems with visibility, which suggests something to do with the layout of the pool or staffing levels, not an individual lifeguard.

This is why I’m wary of just one lifeguard being on duty. No one has the ability to have the attention span and level of concentration required for a protracted period... let alone a 17 yo, who’s brain is still developing. It was a tragic accident and natural for the dad to blame someone else. My first thought was why the hell wasn’t the boy wearing his life jacket? It was in his fathers hand ffs.

We, as a family, are concerned at the levels of health and safety at the David Lloyd pool on the day Rocco died and hope they have been resolved – especially the life guard visibility at the pool area

If the lifeguards don't have good visibility of the pool then absolutely he's right to remark on it.

@Mummyoflittledragon I was wondering about the life jacket too. Shouldn’t it have been on the child as soon as they were out of the locker room and in the poolside area?

If the lifeguards have a limited visibility that is a worry and is a contribution to the loss of the child's life, they are there to watch the pool regardless of how and why someone has got in to trouble. However, sadly the parent is also to blame as the adult in charge of their own child- very sad all round.

I used to be a lifeguard when I was a teen.
However careful you are, when the pool is busy, it is really hard to see.
And one of the characteristics of drowning is that, contrary to popular belief, people do not wave and splash around when drowning, they tend to drown very quietly, slipping under the water.

The article doesn't say how busy the pool was, but one lifeguard sounds like they were thin on the ground.

I have always been super careful with my kids around water, but it only takes a moment, dad was distracted by the lesson being cancelled, and then son was gone.

So sad.

Wow, this is so sad and terrifying to imagine.

I can't swim at all, and I'm really scared of my son learning to swim, because I would be unable to jump in and save him.

I'm also someone who survived drowning at the age of 6. The lifeguard didn't see me either, I was pulled out of the pool by a stranger. I think all pools should have multiple lifeguards, and parents should of course keep an eye on their kids as much as they can. I understand though that it's not always going to happen, and sometimes it ends in tragedy.

Dreadful thing to happen, but seriously; the Dad is quoted as saying “this could have and should have been prevented”.
Yes, it could and should have been prevented - by HIM.

This is so sad. I used to think that being a lifeguard would be a cool job for a teenager, but that changed once I had children and lived the terror of them being anywhere near water.

The lifeguards at our local pool are constantly asking parents with non-swimming children to remain in the shallow end, having discussions with parents about why their non-swimming child can't go into the water without them, to not allow their child to dive headfirst into 1m of water etc etc etc.

The family will be traumatised by this for the rest of their lives. We've all had a parenting lapse as someone said upthread - most of us are lucky that they don't end in tragedy.

As will the 17 year old lifeguard. That poor young man. He took action as soon as he knew that there was a problem.

If there is any fault with the pool or its staff, it's with the management. If risk assessments/ratios/inductions/trainings etc weren't all completely thorough, they will have been a dereliction of duty. Also, i the layout meant that there were some blind spots from where the lifeguard was sitting.

@JingsMahBucket

Yes, agreed. It should have been on him the whole time he was poolside.

One of my DDs trained as a lifeguard at 17 - was a great uni part time job to have and post uni back home she worked there until the right career job cropped up. They have frequent compulsory ( paid) retraining sessions and it is a condition of maintaining the qualification ( and thus employment) to attend enough training sessions.

She also learnt about dealing with the public , including those who seem to think that they are some kind of aqua nannies. The number of people who ignored the child to adult ratio, and arms length proximity for the younger and non swimmers - and then argued with the lifeguards when this was pointed out.

This was a non swimming 3 year old. No matter how many staff were there or not, or what the sight lines were, it was absolutely the father’s responsibility to know where that child was.

He's also quoted as saying both "he wouldn't have gone in the water and "may have been more confident after a family holiday"

Either way he/they weren't watching him well enough for parents who still had hold of his life jacket!

I understand why they desperately want to find someone else to blame, but....

Young children are supposed to be shadowed by an adult swimmer, in arms reach at all times. Yes, this means that someone with multiple young children may not be able to take them swimming solo.

Even with that, kids are fast. I could be at a check stand paying, look away from dd for 1/2 a second, and she would be sprinting to the other end of the store. A child getting away can happen to even the most vigilant parents.

I read about this yesterday and thought it was very unfair on the lifeguard too, of course the family want to blame someone but I don't think the lifegaurd is the right person.

So sad. The inquest is still ongoing, it will be interesting to see what it concludes.

I’m pretty sure our local pool has a rule of one parent per child under 8.

If they see an older child swimming the ask to see them swim before giving them a wristband to show they can actually swim ok.

It’s such a desperately sad story - but you never let a small child out of your sight/always hold onto them at the poolside.

But then small children are the masters of slipping away - but no one saw this small child toddling along by themselves? No one watched him or ‘kept an eye’ on the wee chap?

I would consider this to be a terrible accident rather than apportioning blame to anyone.

17 years is most definitely old enough. In Australia, 17 years is the minimum age for surf lifeguards, and they deal with going far out into the ocean, rough choppy seas and rips. So the age is not an issue. The poor visibility was. Also I admit I don't know the layout of the centre, but in Australia all pools, home pools or commercial - inground or above ground, must have a lockable automatic gate around them so a toddler can't just wander over and enter the pool.

If his dad couldn't keep him in sight, why does he think a lifeguard could? He just had one boy to watch, the lifeguard was watching the whole pool.

@Jaxhog

The parent had another child with him too. Although your simple summary still hits home even with 2 kids to watch over instead of everyone in the main pool and the toddler pool

Very sad but only one person to blame. Lifeguards are not childcare.

I don't blame the lifeguard. Only one person to blame. Lifeguards are not childcare! I feel so sad for the lifeguard he's just so young. The parents are at fault here.

It's such a sad story, I don't think blame can be apportioned to any one person. I did think it was sad to read the Dad was holding the boys life jacket. I would have put a life jacket on a child before reaching the pool area in a pool like that.

Surely the parent should have been watching his own small child.

But I understand why he's grasping elsewhere for blame.

Awful tragedy but ultimately the parent is responsible. It could have been prevented, by him, the father.