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Date Posted: 05:07:19 08/08/01 Wed
Author: Karen
Author Host/IP: 24.15.187.38
Subject: Letter I sent to Local paper

In light of the recent article concerning a lawsuit about a boy who nearly drowned at a county pool, I had to write this. I visit the Water Works Park and various other places in the county regularly. I think the lawsuit is missing a BIG factor – Who was supposed to be monitoring the kids in the first place?

I was at Water Works, August 7. I arrived with my son just after opening. In the small child area, I counted about twenty children from older toddlers to about kindergarten age and just two counselors. At best, can one adult properly monitor ten young children? Only one counselor was remotely watching some of the kids. The other spent a large amount of time with her back turned and then lying about and not fully attentive. The kids were hanging on the climbing net and screaming, “help” as though they were in trouble. Neither adult did anything to help the lifeguards. The lifeguards were spending more time babysitting than monitoring the pool.

I have been going to Waterworks for three summers and I see these things every visit. Last summer it got so bad that I stopped going. The day care and camp kids are often so poorly monitored by their adults that Water Works can be unsafe. This is NO fault of the lifeguards who cannot do their jobs properly because of the inattention of adults responsible for children. I have actually watched counselors and teachers lie down, close their eyes and try to get a tan! I applaud these lifeguards. Their job is to try and prevent an accident and intervene if there is one – not to baby-sit. Do we expect the police who patrol our streets to baby-sit? No and neither should be expect those who police the pools to. To the woman I saw yesterday: I wonder how things would be if the parents or your director knew the poor care and supervision you gave these children? Would you have your job? If I could have gotten the number of where you work, I would have called you director.

The parents of the boy who near drowned have my sympathies. But were those who were supposed to be watching the buy truly doing so? If his care was anything like what I see all the time at Water Works or just at local parks, no. The lifeguards cannot watch every person at the same time and we must be those who first watch out for any child we have with us.

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