Bournemouth incident

[coxesorangepippin]

Not sure what on earth has happened??

Awful news 💐

You don't get arrested for manslaughter for encouraging people to jump off a pier

Please do not get yourselves in a froth about Jet Skis.
The lifeguards use them they are very useful to patrol an area on the water.
According to The Times it was Lifeguard who rescued at least one parson by Jet Ski.
No other report of boats. Good evidence of jumping off pier and/or swimming under pier.

Yes lots don't watch live TV but they can be reached via social media.

The Scottish Water photo was shared via FB. It honestly spoke 1000 words. And far more powerful than any warnings that the loch bed can suddenly drop away.

It was issued just after two adult and a child were killed in once incident and a teen in another in the same weekend.

Whatever the answer is we cannot rely on parents to know what is and what isn't safe.

Well I wondered that but if they were minors and he encouraged them to do it- maybe so?

Not really. If it's basic keeping yours kids alive... surely this is a essential skill everyone should know

this Is so sad for those poor children.

is it usually a rip tide that makes it dangerous to jump from a pier?

Parents need to stop expecting schools to raise their kids for them.

It's not up to the educational system. You either want more 'public awareness campaigns' or you just want parents to teach their kids water safety - which as you mention, on an island, might be an idea.

If the incident was solely the result of pier jumping, and at least 10 people ignored lifeguards warning them of the danger and instead listened to a 40-something pillock, I don’t think lessons in school would have saved them. It sounds more like group-think took the place of individual common sense. Did he encourage them all to jump in at the same time, or something?

Because that's human nature.

It's jumping from heights to a unknown depth of water, that you can't see in to, that's breaking waves and choppy seas close to giant wood/metal poles that you could get thrown into...

Recipe for fucking disaster.

The problem with social media is, far more people are watching the stupid, reckless stunts than the safety warnings.

I grew up by the sea, but it was extremely sheltered and pretty safe (it was a kind of inlet).

it was a bit of a shock to go to the south coast of England and see lifeguards and warnings, or East Anglia and experience the steep shelving and big waves.

We see the seaside as fundamentally benign; all high days and holidays whereas ironically it is bloody dangerous.

We point out to the kids the serious swimmers who tend to stay pretty close to the shore, and who obviously take it very seriously.

The problem with social media is, far more people are watching the stupid, reckless stunts than the safety warnings

Yup. When I was a kid we had loads of those public information adverts in the 80s and they scared the crap out of me. I used to have nightmares about them. The ones about kids climbing electricity pylons, fireworks, drowning and stranger danger.

Thank you

We shouldn't make it a crime to film people in distress - some of the footage the public catches exposes things

But I think we should make it a crime for tabloids to pay extraordinary sums of money for videos to print them and let people's morality decide rather than greed determine what is published of tragic events

For those saying it’s up to schools to teach children about water safety and first aid, what would you like taking out? The curriculum is over full as it is. There is no more capacity to add in extra, so something needs to go in order to make room. There is some basic first aid taught in PSHE, but not much. It sounds like the 40 year old man was at fault here (although we don’t know how/why) so not the fault of the children anyway.

The issue with live TV and ads in-between is nobody watches live TV either.

However the answer isn't to sit back and do nothing or argue which is best, do both, produce an ad and circulate it via schools, cinemas, TV, and social media.

I know that the RNLI has lots of information, but it would be great to be able to post a simple guide aimed at families going for a day at the beach. I’ve not come across that yet, but I’ll have another look.

From most of what I witness, the water safety education needs to be focussed at adults.

I have lost count of the number of toddlers I have seen totally unsupervised at public paddling pools in the summer while their parents gaze at their phone.

Similarly with infant school age children in the sea while mum/dad are all the way up the beach again gazing at their phone.

I am so grateful to my parents who paid for me to qualify as a lifeguard when I was a teenager. We have all kinds of fun on the water with the children (paddleboarding, sailing, swimming) but they know they have to follow the safety rules if they want to have fun on the water, I drummed it into them since they were toddlers. (And yet still I am never complacent, and I know an accident can happen to anyone. And I also know peer pressure and teenage foolishness may make them forget the rules)

We live near the sea and kids, and adults, every year get injured jumping into the sea. And these are people who have lived here all their life and are taught about the dangers. Not random visitors. DH's son and his mates used to do it. They were reasonably sensible but even so we used to worry about them.

https://rnli.org/safety/beach-safety

Yes I have a friend who is a fabulous mother and hugely aware of water safety due to her job and she had made sure her children knew the dangers , and yet still her son decided jumping from a dangerous bridge would be fun (thankfully he was ok)

It isn't quite as simple as education or parenting (although it helps)

We shouldn't make it a crime to film people in distress - some of the footage the public catches exposes things

I wonder what the ratio is of vitally important footage exposing a crime, to mindless footage from people who just have no boundaries and film distressing scenes just for shits and giggles.

Frankly I think it's appalling that people were whipping their phones out to capture children being given CPR. What the fuck is wrong with some people?

I said PEOPLE jumping off the pier, I said nothing about kids, PEOPLE ignoring warning signs, so wind your neck in

You can din water safely etc into kids as much as you like but it won’t necessarily follow that they’ll use common sense or resist peer pressure to keep in with their mates.
I know of at least two children who drowned despite water safety training (one was a sailing club kid, one from a keen fishing family) yet still got into serious difficulties and sadly died.