‘A child can drown in 20 seconds... so don’t use a paddle pool’
PARENTS have been warned not to let the weekend heathwave turn to tragedy as sales of paddling pools soar.
Irish Water Safety CEO John Leech said allowing young children play in shallow water is extremely dangerous because parents can easily become distracted for a moment.
‘Young children can drown within 20 to 60 seconds and it can be completely silent. So if parents get distracted at all, which they do unfortunately, children will drown,’ he said. ‘They buy these
‘We don’t promote them as they claim children’s lives’
pools, they fill them with water and out they go. The phone rings and off the parent goes, and in less than a minute you’ve lost a child.’
He said they were more dangerous than beaches and other natural water areas.
Irish Water Safety warned of the risks young and inexperienced swimmers face around all bodies of water but urged families to avoid paddling pools altogether. Mr Leech said: ‘We don’t promote them because we know they will claim children’s lives.’
The most recent statistics available, from 2014, show that five children under the age of five drowned in shallow bodies of water. A two-year-old was submerged in a bucket of water, another fell into a rural rain water collector and a toddler drowned in a children’s pool while holidaying in Spain.
Paddling pools have been on sale in recent months for as little €18, while some shops sell miniature pools for just €7.49.
Laura Erskine of MummyPages.ie said parental vigilance is the key rather than an outright ban. She said: ‘I think a ban on paddling pools would be extreme. There just needs to be more warnings throughout the summer.’ With alcohol at BBQs, parents may find they’re a little bit more relaxed with paddling pools involved. And parents should be warned to be vigilant ahead of the warm weather, she said.
‘Every child needs to be supervised around water no matter how much water it is.’
The mother-of-two said: ‘The Irish Water Safety should be focused on water safety education, not banning paddling pools.’
Irish Water Safety’s warning follows a spate of pre-summer swimming tragedies which saw ten people drown in just 15 days during a spell of hot weather last month.