Learn to keep your head above water

Once again, drownings are making headlines this summer.

The census compiled by the Quebec Lifesaving Society reports 39 “unofficial” drownings since the beginning of the year – the cause of death has not always been confirmed by a coroner.

We can rejoice that this number is down compared to the same date last year (48 drownings). It can also be pointed out that the circumstances of some of these drownings left the victims little chance, even if they knew how to swim well.

But some of the events that have taken place since the beginning of the summer are heartbreaking.

A 14-year-old girl who drowns in a water park. A 21-year-old man was found dead in a municipal swimming pool. Another in a lake in Montérégie. Other people who have been swept away by the current, following a fall or swimming. According to testimonies collected from relatives, these victims did not know how to swim, or broke basic safety rules. Deaths could have been avoided.

In a country of lakes and rivers, in-ground and above-ground swimming pools, the need to know how to get by in the water is unavoidable. We’re not talking about mastering the art of the butterfly stroke. But we are not talking either about bathing “in the hollow step”, by jumping in the bottom of the water. We’re talking about being able to swim to survive.

What would happen to you if you fell into the water, without having your feet on the bottom, and you had to swim several meters to a safe place? Would you be able to do it to save your life?

For many children, this is not the case. And it’s not just because of a lack of awareness on the part of their parents, as our colleague Mayssa Ferah recently reported, when she met residents of Anjou who complained about the difficulty of access to swimming lessons for children.

In an ideal world, the school physical education program would integrate swimming lessons for all elementary and secondary students. Or at least there would be enough large indoor pools and lifeguards for all the kids to learn the basics of the sport.

We could certainly wish to make it a societal objective, since swimming meets both a need for civil security and physical activity.

But while we dither over the millions of dollars it costs to build and maintain swimming pools, other drownings will occur…

Faced with the difficulty of offering swimming lessons to all children, the Lifesaving Society offers a more pragmatic solution: the “Swim to Survive” program.

Offered to students from year 3^e primary year (8-9 years), it consists of three one-hour sessions where students learn the basics of survival swimming: find their bearings after falling into deep water, swim on the spot for a minute, then move a distance of 50 meters to get to safety.

In 2019, the Ministry of Education has set itself the goal of reaching more than 100,000 children in four years with this program. Around 20,000 young people aged 3^e and 4^e primary grade attended the program in the year before the pandemic – a period during which the program was suspended. With the resumption last September, there are 15,134 children (out of the 185,000 pupils in 3^e and 4^e year) who were able to participate.

It’s good. But it is still too little.

Schools should be further encouraged to devote time to this activity. Amounts have also been released by Quebec to pay for the hiring of monitors and lifeguards, the rental of swimming pools and the transportation of students by school bus.

But the pressure also applies to the rest of society, not just to school principals.

In Drummondville, for example, the municipal organization responsible for managing aquatic facilities coordinates the program offered to all students in grades 3^e primary year in this territory (private and public schools, English and French).

Lack of swimming pools is a problem in many areas, but the Lifesaving Society stresses that it doesn’t need an Olympic size pool to teach children the basics of survival swimming. And small swimming pools, there are in hotels, in private sports centers, in condo buildings… The owners of these facilities must also be encouraged to welcome children as part of this program.

Children are already learning a lot of survival tricks to save themselves: dialing 911, crossing the street, escaping a fire… Teaching them to keep their heads above water must be part of this.