First Local Home Pool Drowning of the Season

As Jackie P. said it happens frequently here in Florida . . . :(

We have a fenced in back yard, with a side yard latch that is very high.

We had a very similar experience to 8kidsDad. One year at Thanksgiving my younger son (age 4 at the time) got into trouble at my SIL's pool. My husband was standing just to the side, and looking right at him. Husband had to jump in with all his clothes and cell phone. It was so scary and I've never forgotten how tragic it might have been if we'd been talking, drinking, etc.

Bottom line: little kids + pools = lots of caution.

Yeah, we have a lot of small lakes with campsites right up against the water.

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S###-###-####.shtml?cat=300

Here's the first one of the season just now.

:(

This won't be popular... But it drives me nuts: People don't keep watch on their kids, the kids thrn go into someone else's yard/property, drown in their pool, and the pool owner is blamed.

Our pools have always been in backyards, past at LEAST one fence, and not every year but close SOMEONE trespasses and is in the pool. Young kids who either don't or who should know better, older kids who DO know better... NONE of them supervised by their parents (some SENT by parents...grrr)... But the pool owner is 'to blame'.

My grandfather actually hung a sign in each gate: Trespassers Will Be Shot. Because its perfectly legal to SHOOT someone on your property, but heaven forbid they climb in your pool. Attractive nuisance is too little a word for it.

For the record, he didn't shoot kids. He called 911 and reported an abandoned child. He DID shoot adults (bb gun, though, he was within his rights to use more).

Don't get me wrong... There are times when parents do EVERYTHING right, and their escape artist gets out (and gets hit by a car, falls off a ledge/down apartment stairs, falls into/climbs into a pool/hottub/lake/etc.

That's a TRAGEDY.

Hail. It's a tragedy when they're worthless parents. Any child's death is a tragedy.

But I do NOT blame the driver, apartment complex, or pool owner.

There was a case yesterday about a two year old drowning in a two foot pool. So much stupid, so little time. The pool was one of those blow up ring ones and since it was a trailer park they saw nothing wrong with just leaving it up with no fence. Then mom left her three kids with her boyfriend while she worked. It was the four year old that brought it to the boyfriends attention that the twins were not in the house. :( By the time they found them the girl had drown and the boy was wandering around.

I just don't know what that falls under. Stupidity with pools, stupidity with parenting, I am going with a little of column a a little of column b. :(

We have a fenced yard and the ladder is pulled when we are not using it. Considering my 13 year old can't get that ladder in we are probably pretty safe.

It's very sad that this happens. Here in Florida it happens way too often. It only takes a couple of minutes for a small child to get out the door and into the pool. They just don’t understand how dangerous it is.

We had an in ground pool in PA and we have one here in Florida. The pool in PA was fenced in and the gate was ALWAYS locked, it was also covered in the winter. You could walk on the winter cover and never fall in.

Here in Florida we have a child safety gate and the door to the screen enclosure has the handle up high so children can't reach it. I also keep a spring curtain rod at the top of our sliding door so that my daughter can’t get out there.

How awful and sad :( :( :(
I know the laws vary from state to state, here's the law in California, if anyone's interested:
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/HealthInfo/environhealth/water/Doc...
Basically if you have a pool here it needs to be fenced, at least so that random kids can't wander onto your property and fall in.
What a tragedy, I just don't get how a 2 year old wanders away?

I happens here in AZ all the time. And as a reminder to you, its not only "toddlers" and "small children" that drown. Drowning is a silent death. So your pool should be locked at ALL times.

That being said, my husband and I rent a home with a pool. We are going on year 5. When we moved in, the yard is fenced, but the POOL isn't. Its an inground pool. So the landlord allowed us to install a mesh pool fence. It cost us $1800. And our kids were 5, 8 and 12 at the time. Its the responsible thing to do. Not only for your own kids and visitors to your home, but you never know when someone will come on your property. As an insurance agent, it is a HUGE liability. I wonder if that homeowners insurance company knew they had a pool on their property that wasn't fenced in? Its very sad. I think every home that has a pool should not only have the yard fenced in, but also another fence around the pool.

You can never let your guard down.

I was at a birthday party for one of my SIL two days ago. Three adults were in the pool with several kids. The two year old of the birthday dad saw me in the pool and walked off the walkway around the in-ground pool to come to me. I had my back to him, and his mom had just put him down after giving him something to eat. I didn't hear him splash because of the noise the other kids were making. I just happened to turn around and there he was about 6" below the surface of the water. He was happily kicking and flaying his hands. I reached over to grab his arm and lift him into my arms. He just wiped the water off his face and was laughing and hugging me. He never even cried. But it made my heart beat even faster. If I hadn't turned around at just the right time we might have had a trajedy. AND I was in the pool within arms reach.

We had a happy birthday pool party. We had fun. But everyone had to be on their toes watching kids. We had 11 or 12 kids we were watcing. All of them were under 7.

You have to be vigilant with kids and water. Good luck to you and yours.

first never say never. you have taken all the precautions you can or should - but it doesn't mean it WON'T happen. but good job doing all you can.

my mom has an above ground pool as did my grandma before her. we disable the ladder when not in use. my grandma's had a ladder that swung up out of reach, and my mom's is just a little portable one that she takes out of the pool.

granted, both of them live out in the boonies and if a child got into their pool somehow it would raise HUGE red flags.

my mom just said the other day, (we have two 5 year olds and a 2 year old in our family) that she doesn't worry about the 5 year olds near as much as the 2 year olds - it's that 2 year old mentality of indestructibility and pushing boundaries. by 5 they have a lot more figured out, of course. but your story made me think of her comment.

these accidents are not that common here.... more common are boating/swimming accidents on all the lakes around here.

My neighbors behind me (we share a fenceline) have an above-ground pool that is fenced in, except for where the deck is. It really scares me that some could come into their back yard, walk up the steps onto their deck & fall into their pool.

One of the reasons we took out our above ground pool (was here when we bought the house) is because I KNOW I get too distracted to be a responsible owner. But still, we take precautions since 3 of our 4 adjoining neighbor's have pools.

My 3 year old is always trying to open our doors to go outside. We installed a security system that has sensors on all the doors and it will set off the alarm if a child opens a door. Even when the system isn't armed, I will hear the beeps if a door is opened. We also have chain-locks high up on our exterior doors.

Very sad story.

In our area there are not a lot of pools so fortunately not any pool accidents, more accidents occur here in the lakes and on snowmobiles in the winter.

We have an in ground pool with an automatic pool cover and I would not have a pool without a cover like this for safety. It is a cover that automatically slides over the pool when a key is inserted and turned and when it is closed the water is not accessible at all! We keep the cover closed when the pool is not in use. I feel covers like this are much safer because fences can be climbed or left open and like another person posted many kids come over when pool owners are not home. We have found this cover to be handy when we have toddlers over and everyone is sitting down to eat but they are still wanting to swim, we just close the pool cover and then there are no worries. When my kids are a bit older I plan to take the key with me on occasion to insure I don't have a house full of teens using the pool without me home :)

It sounds like the pool owners broke the law. Depending on the law in your area. In my town its a law that pools must be completely fenced in. Also the parents of the child should have been watching their child. Both parties share some responsibility in this case. It's a horrible tragedy and my heart breaks for all those involved. I recently read about a baby sitter who lost track of the 2 year old she was watching and after calling the police they found the child at the bottom of her pool.

This is not very common in my area but it happens everywhere. Drowning is the second leading cause of death in children.

There are always lots of accidents of this type in our area. At our old house, which we still have as a rental,we have a inground pool, there is a chain link fence around it, it is a special type for pool areas,the spaces are too small for anyone to climbover. There are to gate and both have locks,the locks were always locked if an adult wasnt outside. The property was also fenced all the way around.

Real unfortunate.
Pools need to be secured.
Then in some areas, the neighbor kids all trespass and enter someone else's property and pool. And when they are not home!
So then, it seems like a person's pool has to be more securely locked than Fort Knox. And it might have to be.
If a kid/person is trespassing to get into another person's property to get into their pool, then that person is wrong.

In Hawaii people have pools. There are fences or walls around the home.
And there is also typically, Alarm systems, for the premises.

Not too common as I live in an area where there are not a lot of pools, but my sister's pool is ALWAYS gated in. The only time it is not is for parties and she hires a lifeguard for them too.

This saddens me to the core. I haven't heard of anything like this locally, but I have in other parts. I totally agree that people having a pool should be responsible pool owners and fence & lock it in. These tragedies are so preventable and it really hurts me to know that there is such a easy solution to all of it.

Thank you for your post. Awareness is so key. Spread the good word! I have been following a very sad case, you can find it on FB. It's called "Please pray for Rosalie". A small child who drowned 6 June and still has not woke up. Thank you again for this post!

ps, I don't own a pool but I like your post!

around here if u have an inground pool you are required by law to have a fence around your yard.. 5ft mayb.. could be 4 im not sure.. we have a 5ft fence around our backyard and the way our gate opens you have to push down on the top of the handle.. so if u cant reach the 5ft top part of the fence u cant get the gate open so even if its unlocked no little kid is getting in our yard.. iv never heard of any kids drowning in our town but in our area of the state iv heard of one so far this summer

oh this is so sad, thank you for sharing so that maybe others wll be more aware.

Even a small amount of water can drown a child, long ago a nephew drowned in a back yard pond during a family BBQ with a few dozen people attending. I havn't heard of any locally but agree with that staying alert is key.

If you have something in your yard and it is not behind a fence you are enticing kids into the yard to play on it. In my town the homeowner would be the one in trouble for this one. They have a moral and legal obligation to keep hazards out of reach of kids just in case they do find a way in their yard and get hurt.

This is so sad.

We have to have a fence where we live. Our lock is broken, but hubby has the gate held with rubber strap. Hard to explain, but you have to be very strong to get it off. We also take the ladder out.

There is only so much we can do. At a certain point, it is the parents fault for not knowing where their children are, not the pool owners :(

I heard of one child drowning in an in ground pool - IMO much easier to fall into one of those, than an above ground one 4 or five feet off the ground.
We have a sturdy gate to our pool, it is shut and locked, and I tie a rope around it to be sure. It worries me, because my 4 year old, is an escape artist, and totally fearless. Which is why I had to teach her to swim early. She could swim easily to the side if she fell in. But at 2 years old? She would have drowned for sure.