Insisting on the law

In a beautiful afternoon in 1998,in the Toronto area, a 2 years old "Olivia Robinson" fictive name is having a nap with her parents. The family just moved in the home. While parent are napping Olivia woke up and went outside in the yard. There is no fence between the home and the access to the above ground pool. Olivia falls into the water straight to the bottom. Her father found his daughter in the bottom of the pool but it was too late.

Peter Barss stated "the parents never heard anything. The best and only solution I know is to implementing a law that would make fencing around pools mandatory. Furthermore It has been prove that having a fence around residential pools would greatly diminish the young children's death significantly".

In Quebec, Terrebonne and Laval, a law forces new pool owner to fenced their pool. However it is not the case for all, sometimes left to each municipalities to make their by-laws we found a lot of inconsistency between cities and residential area regarding security and law about pools. Mainly each cities has their by-laws and tend to be confusing and hard to apply whatever rules they must proceed with residential pool. We need to keep focus on safety of the children. Some municipalities insist on 4 walls fence while others insist on only covering 3 walls leaving a open corner.

According to Dr Robert Conn, it is absolutely ridiculous some laws say that our children can drown but not the neighbour's? Dr Conn is the President for Think Safety; organisation preventing unnecessary accidents. He says further more that 4 walls to all fences for residential pool should be mandatory because it is the only logical protection.

It is up to our government to prevail and to make a firm law all over Canada. Peter Barss shared that as long as it is not a law for pool fencing children will continue to die unnecessary. P. Barss believes that lobbying a law to protect the children in pools can be just like having the government mandating safety belt in cars. In the same flavour the pools sellers should have to equip any pool with a security system at least the basics. Even involving insurance companies to have customers having a security locks on doors accessing pools.

Better safe than sorry....

What else can we do to protect our children other than having severe universal rules well controlled?

1. Never leave a child alone near any water even if they can swim. a child will rarely conduct himself safely in any danger, he most likely won't be behaving the same was that he would behave with supervision.

Source of the National Report on drowning in 1998 was 95% were children under the age of 5 and they die while having no supervision or poor supervision with another minor supervising them. Sylvain Leroux consultant for by-laws in Verdun and lobbyist stated: Only a adult shall be supervising children when they swim.

2. Even with the biggest fence: Never leave any article or items near the fence for the child to climb on. Place filters and other items at least 2 metre from the door. Never block open or leave the door wide open, never.

3. Get first aid and CPR : update your cards often!! This could save a life even if the child is not breathing. The Ambulance came 15 minutes later after they been called said Nathalie Leveille. They said that Joanie would of been death if I did not intervene with giving her mouth to mouth as fast as I did. First Aid and CPR are available at the St-John ambulance and Red Cross. A lot of great information can be available while National drowning prevention week is on from July 16 to the 22th.

4. Introduce the children to water and teach them how to swim. Do not believe that because you have done so with the children that there is no need for fencing that pool. Even if a child is comfortable in the water a child is not a avid swimmer or even considerate as a swimmer before the age of 5.

5. Make a stand and insist for a better by-law regarding residential pool. Do it for all the children that dies every summer and those one that stay handicaps due to pool accident. Nathalie Leveille shares: "we are never safe enough when having a pool". "...A second too late can change everything." concluded Nathalie Leveille.