Today, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission kicked off the Pool Safely campaign (www.poolsafely.gov). This is a first-of-its-kind national public education effort to reduce child drownings, and non-fatal submersions and entrapments in swimming pools and spas.
The Pool Safely campaign will start off with a national conversation with parents and children, pool owners and operators, and industry professionals about the simple safety steps they can take to protect themselves and their families in and around pools and spas. Pool & spa incidents are preventable, so the mission is to change the way families think and act about pool and spa safety.
Safety in the water comes with adopting and practicing as many water safety measures as possible, including: learning and practicing water safety skills (knowing how to swim and perform CPR); installing barriers that completely surround the pool & spa with self-closing, self-latching gates; staying close, being alert, and watching children while in the pool and/or spa; and having the appropriate pool/spa equipment in place (i.e., compliant drain covers, alarms, sensors, and barriers).
Statistics reveal that from 2005 to 2007, there was an annual average of 385 pool and spa-related drownings of children younger than 15. Approximately 78 percent of these (299) were children younger than five years old.
Then from 2007 to 2009, the estimated annual average was 4,200 pool or spa emergency department-treated submersions for children younger than 15, with children between the ages of 12 to 35 months representing 47 percent of the estimated injuries for those years.
Approximately 54 percent of the estimated injuries for 2007 to 2009 and 74 percent of the fatalities from 2005 to 2007 involving children younger than fifteen occurred at a residence. Most of the reported fatalities occurred on the day of or within a week of the submersion incident. Only four percent of fatal victims survived beyond a week from the submersion. These victims sustained severe injuries and required intensive medical care and treatment.
For the complete reports, copy and paste the following into your web browser:
Pool and Spa Submersions 2010
http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia10/os/poolsub2010.pdf
Circulation/Suction Entrapments 2010
http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia10/os/entrap10.pdf
A. Jason Kerckhoff is a San Diego personal injury lawyer and the President of Kerckhoff Law, APC, a San Diego personal injury law firm dedicated to representing people who have been seriously injured or killed, and the families of loved ones who have suffered death caused by the negligence of another.
A. Jason Kerckhoff has been successfully obtaining excellent results for his clients for more than twenty-five years. He has the highest rating in Martindale-Hubbell, which is the preeminent company that rates attorneys not only for their abilities, but for their ethics. These ratings are obtained by peers in the San Diego community, and a small percentage of lawyers are privileged to have achieved this rating.
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