Summer is here and the Canadian Red Cross wants people to start thinking about water safety.
The next few months offer many activities like swimming and boating.
Communications Director Dan Bedell says people should take swimming lessons.
“These teach a lot of skills, particularly to a child both about how to actively swim and how to stay safe in and near the water,” says Bedel;.
An average of 400 Canadians drown each year.
Dan Bedell says one item that makes a difference is a personal floatation device.
“We have found in the vast majority of cases a PFD was not being worn when a person drowned and that clearly given all of these circumstances had they been wearing one they likely would have survived,” says Bedell.
Bedell adds that children should always be supervised by an adult because they can drown in only a few centimetres of water, enough to cover their nose and mouth.
“Drowning typically is a silent killer, it happens very quickly and very quietly, they go in the water for a second and don’t come back up, that’s why we encourage very close adult supervision,” says Bedell.
He says a personal floatation device should also be worn while out on, or even near, the water.
