Olympian backs water safety
THIS is the swim safety plea to all Queenslanders that Brooke Hanson almost never got to make.
Before she became an Australian swimmer, before she won Olympic gold medals, Brooke Hanson was a toddler lying motionless on the bottom of a family friend’s pool.
The Hansons were visiting friends at a Brisbane home in the days before backyard pool fencing, when they noticed they couldn’t find Brooke.
She had fallen in to the pool and sunk to the black tiles on the bottom.
Her frantic parents dived in at opposite ends and eventually brought her up and brought her back.
Amazingly, young Brooke, still not even two years old, had a second brush with drowning at a hotel pool in Foster a short time later.
The Hansons, a proud surf lifesaving family with salt water flowing through their veins, didn’t need another warning and promptly enrolled their young girl in swimming lessons.
She won her first competitive race when she was five.
The rest is history. Now retired from swimming and raising a family of her own on the Gold Coast, Hanson said learning to swim was one of the most essential life skills anyone could have.
She said she was right behind The Chronicle’s campaign in calling for change on swim safety.
“Me getting in to swimming, it was never about becoming an Olympic champion, it was to make me safe around water,” she said.
“I don’t remember the incidents (near drownings) but I remember learning to swim and how safe that felt.”
With her own kids now all involved in swimming, she said she could not understand why Queensland was not a national leader in swim safety programs for schoolkids.
“Queensland is a swimming and surfing state where everyone enjoys being around the water,” she said.
“Swimming lessons are so important, especially in Queensland.
“Getting kids in to swimming is a skill for life that could save a life.
“I really think the State government should get behind this fantastic campaign.”