Be safe in the water this Festive Season
Many things can go wrong in the water – swimming coach.
Head coach of Florida Swimming Club and Orcas Swimming Academy, Tracey Hemphill says that it is possible for anyone to drown and she hopes her input can prevent such a tragedy from occurring this Festive Season.
“We at Orcas swimming say: ‘Prevention is better than cure’ and hope that this article generates awareness for water safety. Rather be prepared, do a first-aid course, get your children water safe and always take care,” she says.
“There seems to be a misconception that only people who struggle in water can drown. Well this is not the case and proven time and time again in the most unexpected conditions.
“American swimmer Fran Crippen was a six-time US National Champion. He won national titles in the 800m freestyle, two in the 5km open-water swim and two in the 10km open-water swim. He died on 23 October 2010 during a FINA open-water event in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). His body was found by divers at the final buoy, about 500m from the finish, 90 minutes after the completion of the race .
“It later was determined that he died from a cardiac abnormality, uncontrolled exercise-induced asthma and unfavourable environmental race conditions. His death sparked investigations into race safety and physiological conditions that can cause sudden death.
“Fran was a member of the swimming community who would have been in tune with his physiological condition, and who should have been able to identify possible problems. However, he did not and he died unnecessarily.
“We at Orcas swimming experienced a similar incident on Tuesday 15 October, when one of our competitive age group swimmers lost consciousness during the second set of the training session.
“The swimmer, who was being observed by assistant coach Irene Bussey, went into the tumble turn at the end of the pool and didn’t come up after that. Irene quickly recognised that there was a problem and dived into the pool to pull the swimmer to the surface where she was attended to by Irene and Tamarin Lawson. Both women have many years of first-aid training and lifesaving experience, and quickly were able to stabilise the swimmer until the ambulance arrived.
“It is suspected that the swimmer had a seizure of sort, and lost consciousness. The swimmer has no history of epilepsy, seizures or cardiac conditions and will be undergoing tests to try and determine what exactly caused the loss of consciousness.
“But thankfully this story has a happy ending and only because of the fast responses of these two ladies who were able to recognise a problem quickly and respond appropriately.
“The swimmer spent three days in ICU at Life Wilgeheuwel Hospital where she has recovered well and will be resuming her swimming training as soon as conclusive tests clear her to do so.
“Too often we take it for granted that our child can swim and is comfortable in the water or even a very competent swimmer, so we leave them to carry on unobserved.
“It caught us by complete surprise, but the staff at Orcas Swimming were prepared and ready to deal with a potentially devastating situation”.
Florida Swimming Club will be running first-aid and CPR courses for those who are interested in becoming competent at dealing with an emergency. Orcas Learn to Swim Centre is open from Monday 13 January 2014.
Please get your child booked in to any water-safety programme.
For enquires for the first-aid courses or to book your child into our programme, please call Tracey on 083 399 1205, or email orcasadmin@gmail.com/ orcas@mweb.co.za.
Wishing you all the best for the Festive Season.
