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May is National Water Safety Month, a campaign to bring awareness to safer and enjoyable aquatic activities. Throughout the year, we want to bring awareness to the risks associated with swimming and water. We strive to equip parents and children with the tools necessary so that they can be safer in and around the water.

water safety

Here are the Top Water Safety Tips, courtesy of the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF)

1. Teach children water safety and swimming skills as early as possible. You can start your kids in swim lessons at Sea Otter as early as four months old.

2. Appoint a designated “water watcher” to monitor children during social gatherings at or near pools. Take turns with other adults watching the pool area.

3. Equip doors and windows that exit to a pool area with alarms.

4. Learn CPR and keep rescue equipment poolside. Don’t wait for the paramedics to arrive because you will lose valuable lifesaving seconds.

5. Keep a first aid kit at poolside. Get First Aid certified.

6. Install four-sided fencing, at least five feet high, equipped with self-closing and self-latching gates that completely surrounds the pool and prevents direct access from the house and yard.

7. Maintain constant visual contact with children in a pool or pool area. If a child is missing, check the pool first; seconds count in preventing death or disability. Don’t use flotation devices as a substitute for supervision.

8. Don’t leave objects such as toys that might attract a child in the pool and pool area. Never prop the gate to a pool area open.

9. Don’t rely on swimming lessons, life preservers or other equipment to make a child “water safe.”

10. Never assume someone else is watching a child in a pool area.

11. Don’t leave chairs or other items of furniture where a child could use them to climb into a fenced pool area.

12. Don’t assume that you’ll hear a child who’s in trouble in the water. Drowning is a silent death, with no splashing to alert anyone that the child is in trouble.

We believe that learning water safety skills early on can help prevent accidents and can give children the tools they need in case an accident does occur.