The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 (COVID-19) has required people to adhere to strict stay-at-home orders for the last two to three months. Now that it's officially June and the summer has arrived, men, women, and children are itching to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. While not all beaches and amusement parks may be open as usual this time of year, backyard swimming pools are a welcome and inviting alternative to beat the summer heat and get outside.
If you’ll be swimming in your own backyard pool or someone else’s, it’s important to remember that since swimming pools involve large amounts of water, they can pose serious drowning risks, even to individuals who know how to swim. To help you enjoy a safe and healthy summer, read these swimming pool safety tips!
Staying Safe Around Pools
To ensure you avoid a near-drowning or a drowning accident, we urge you to follow these swimming pool safety tips:
- Never let children swim in a pool unattended, even if they are good swimmers.
- If you have children, enroll them in swimming lessons until they become highly-skilled swimmers.
- When watching children swim, avoid consuming alcohol.
- If you can’t swim or if you’re a poor swimmer, enroll yourself in adult swimming lessons and continue until you’re a competent swimmer.
- If you own a swimming pool, make sure it has a locking gate around it to deter neighborhood children from sneaking in your pool or even drowning when you’re not home.
- If you’re watching children swim, avoid engaging in distracting activities like reading or going on your cellphone. Most children drown when adults took their eyes off of them for a few short minutes.
- NEVER trust lifeguards to watch children swim. Many children have died in the presence of lifeguards who didn’t notice them drowning.
- To ensure your pool and spa are safer at night, install pool lighting so people can see better when walking around the pool in the nighttime hours and when night swimming.
For all of your pool lighting needs, contact Lightning Bug Electric!