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Healthy Summer Demands Pool
Safety
With schools closing
and the mercury rising, backyard and municipal swimming pools throughout
Oneida
County
will soon be luring youngsters with the promise of summer fun and relief
from the heat. However, without
warning, what began as fun in the water can turn into tragedy.
The Oneida County Health Department wants to remind area residents
that drowning is a major cause of serious injury and death among children,
and offers these basic safety tips for parents to keep their children safe
in and around water:
- Learn
to swim. The
best thing you can do to be safe in and around water is to be able to
swim – this applies to both children and adults.
- Never
leave a child unattended in the pool.
Even in municipal pools
where lifeguards are on duty, parents or adult guardians should monitor
children.
- Keep
a wireless phone by the pool so that emergency medical help can be
summoned quickly if necessary.
- Learn
CPR. Anyone
supervising children near water, including grandparents and
babysitters, should know how to perform CPR.
- Post
Emergency numbers and CPR instructions in the pool area.
- Enclose
the pool area with a self-closing, self-locking fence.
Do not leave furniture
near the fence that would allow children to climb over the fence.
- Keep
lifesaving equipment including a pole, a rope and personal floatation
device by the pool and know how to use them.
- Keep
toys away from the pool when not it use as they may attract young
children to the water.
- If
you have a backyard pool and child is missing, check the pool first!
“Never leave small children
unattended in small portable
pools, fountains or buckets
filled with water, as even small bodies of water pose the threat of drowning
to a child,” Nicholas A.
DeRosa, Director of Health said. “Children
should be kept away from spas and hot tubs since they are susceptible to
overheating.”
For more information on pool safety contact the Oneida County Health
Department at 798-5064 or log onto the web site at www.ocgov.net.
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