Bournemouth incident

[coxesorangepippin]

Not sure what on earth has happened??

Awful news 💐

The only jetski owners I know are chavs who have a disregard for everyone who isn't them. Our neighbour revs his by our fence (ie. not on the water) each year. Cunts. I hope they lock up the dickhead who murdered two kids for a long, long time.

A woman on Twitter claims she was a witness and has said it was pier jumping and that they'd been expressly warned not to by lifeguards because of the rip tide, which would explain the subsequent arrest.

My personal view (apart from how devastating it is when things like this happen) is that its a good opportunity to open dialog with our children. For example in the winter when those Poor boys died in the ice on a lake I sat my children down and briefly told them why it is dangerous. I would have no reason to think about saying it otherwise.

As for schools, perhaps not as part of their curriculum as such but I would welcome perhaps during their assembly they could touch on seasonal things like this then let parents know and encourage the conversation to be continued at home.

They were jumping off the pier apparently and got caught in the rip tide. A jet ski was used to attempt rescue

I agree @Mummymn with the idea of awareness assemblies. Some parents nowadays seem to resent their kids being around so never put in the effort with teaching them how to swim or be in water safely. Yes schools are under pressure but when it's life or death someone needs to try and cover some bases.

So very sad.
Many schools had swimming pools built during the 60s and 70s. Sadly they were thought too expensive to maintain and most have been demolished and concreted over to become car parks. Short sighted and many children never learn to swim.

They all jumped off the pier.
Sadly two were carried by riptides.

Because everyone watched the same 2/3/4 channels and you could reach a huge audience very quickly. Now viewers are fragmented over a huge number of platforms and it’s very difficult to get critical
mass.

At the same time we now live at a time where every bit of human knowledge is available via the smartphone in one’s hand but instead of educating ourselves we use it to argue with strangers and watch videos of cats doing mildly amusing things

Cross post. Yes, it sounds like lifeguards did warn them.

Our school does have the RNLI in to give lessons, they do a brilliant job and my DC still talk about the advice they were given when we go the beach.

Sorry if I'm being dense but do you mean an adult (the 40 year old man) was encouraging them to do it?

Presumably lifeguards warned him not to encourage them and he did it anyway.

Just devastating. We need loads more of those public safety things on TV/cinema. Pre-covid, I recall seeing the cold-water shock one in the cinema. It was really good - clear and memorable.

My children know not to jump off a cliff etc into water because of submerged rocks because there was a spate of “tomb stoning” a few years ago and someone ended up in a wheelchair. However, in years to come with a bit of booze, bravado and peer-pressure, I do worry about whether they will be tempted.

It’s not just this and rips etc that people need to be educated on though - no one should be digging huge holes in sand or tunnelling into dunes either. The sides collapse and no one can get them out and they drown/suffocate. Completely hideous.

Oh I see. How awful.

It sounds that way.

Is it? My kids haven't had swimming lessons in junior school in England yet in year 4. What happens before year 4? I agree that it's not schools job to cover every aspect of life skills.

What an idiotic thing to do.

Absolutely horrific tragedy.

Unfortunately state school swimming lessons cannot be relied upon to teach a child to swim properly, never mind learn essential water safety skills.

@LostJellycatBunny
https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2021/07/13/did-you-know-swimming-and-water-safety-are-part-of-the-school-curriculum/

Haven't read the whole threat so unsure if it's already been said. But we were there on the beach and it wasn't a jetski. A motorised boat I think.

I live in a tourist Coastal Town, by nature there a lot of strong swimmers / surfers. The amount of tourists resuced by local swimmers / life guards (when on duty) is staggering.

It is a combination of a complete lack of understanding how powerful a rip can be, and also just ignoring flag warnings (and swim between flag warnings)

I don't know the answer, however, underestimatig the sea seems to be very common place for lots of of people.

Therefore the debate about water safety being in the curriculum is unfortunately redundant in this situation.

@Lorrymum yes it’s such a shame we don’t have these swimming pools anymore. There used to even be one close to Bournemouth beach, imagine, now closed of course. It’s been the destruction of the civic society (that largely the Victorians built) in favour of pointless vanity schemes, private enterprise expensive ugliness or simply nothing at all. Some amazing lidos were built in the 1930s when there wasn’t even that much cash about. They were enlightened times in some ways.

I’m not sure school swimming lessons would have helped here. Presumably they were reasonably swimmers or they wouldn’t have jumped into deep seawater. What they didn’t know was how to get out of a rip and they ignored advice not to get into the rip on the first place. You could be a very good pool swimmer and still drown in a riptide.

Presumably before year 4 they are closely supervised in and near water by their parents/ guardians.