SAFETY FIRST

Families learn water safety at Lansing Pool

COHOES, N.Y. » Parents and children from the Spindle City were able to kick-off the first full-week of summer vacation while learning more about water safety education at Lansing Pool Wednesday afternoon.

Mayor Shawn Morse recently announced a free two-hour water safety education event sponsored by the city of Cohoes, the Department for Children, Youth, and Families of Albany County along with officials from Albany Medical Center at Lansing Pool.

County, city and medical officials said that the goal of the water safety education is to educate parents, caregivers and children about safer practices around water, drowning prevention tools and ultimately the opportunity to learn and practice CPR on manikins.

“We’re just really trying to get kids familiar and comfortable with elements of CPR and what to do in case of an emergency, so it’s not really any formal training here today,” said Christine Zappone, the Children’s Advocacy Coordinator with Albany County.

“As medical providers, we feel that we could educate on some of the things that we see in our hospital and at other hospitals, especially when we talk about pediatrics,” said Kaylin Dawson, a registered nurse in the emergency department at Albany Medical Center and the main safety event organizer.

The education training is fa-

cilitated through a Multi-Disciplinary Team which is a collaboration of emergency room staff at Albany Medical Center, both physicians and nurses and the Department for Children, Youth, and Families of Albany County’s Child Advocacy Center. Child participants received a U.S. Coast Guard approved puddle jumper life jacket to highlight and emphasize summer safety.

Although summertime for kids usually means going to the cities municipal pool on James Street to cool off and have fun with their friends and family, Morse said that it is just as important for families to know safe practices while near or in a pool and to also know what to do in the case of an emergency at a pool.

“Water safety is the main focus for the summer months and hosting this free water safety event will provide a foundation of knowledge for participants,” said Morse. “Educating the community provides awareness and decreases the risk of water related injuries. I would like to thank the County of Albany for this opportunity.”

For parents like Crystal Lajeunesse, Wednesday afternoon was a perfect time to take her kids and nephew to swim at Lansing’s Pool, and she said it worked out even better once she saw the water safety education events going on there today.

“Once we got here to swim and saw all of this set-up, I decided that I wanted to try it out with the kids and learn since it is always good to know CPR,” said Lajeunesse. “I am very happy that they are doing something like this here, so that I can also refresh myself on some of these things too.”

PHOTOS BY NICHOLAS BUONANNO — NBUONANNO@TROYRECORD.COM Kaylin Dawson, a registered nurse in the emergency department at Albany Medical Center, helps show her four-year-old daughter Charlee Dawson how to perform CPR during a water safety event in Cohoes on Wednesday.

A member from the Cohoes Fire Department helps to show a family how to perform CPR on a dummy in Lansing's Park and Pool Wednesday.

PHOTOS BY NICHOLAS BUONANNO — NBUONANNO@TROYRECORD.COM Officials from Albany County Department for Children, Youth, and Families and Albany Medical Hospital staff members pose for a picture prior to the first-ever water safety education event in Cohoes Wednesday.

Cohoes Mayor Shawn Morse displays some of the U.S. Coast Guard approved puddle jumper life jackets that were given to children who attended the water safety education event at Lansing’s Pool Wednesday afternoon.

Cohoes Mayor Shawn Morse, who is a retired city firefighter, helps teach CPR to seven-year-old Dustin Hanna Wednesday afternoon in Lansing’s Park and Pool.