The statistics are horrifying but the news reports of individual children drowning in backyard pools are worse. The loss last week of twin 21-month-old boys on the Central Coast must have caused a slump in everyone's day, and less than a week later the drowning of a two-year-old Charlestown boy was especially distressing.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 229 children under the age of five drowned in Australia in the five years to 2003, and they represented 80 per cent of all child drownings. Other statistics show that drowning is the most common cause of accidental death in children aged from one, about the time they become mobile, to five.
Of course the death of the child is just part of the tragedy. The impact on the families, and especially on those who were charged with caring for the child at that time, must be horrendous.
Mandatory pool fencing took the protection of very young children a big step forward two or three decades ago, and as I ask in my column today might it not be time to look for another big step forward? Yes, I know that nothing can beat vigilance, but it's a fact of life that unpredictable toddlers can slip away.
I read years ago of a type of ripple-detecting alarm for pools, although I believe it would have to be turned on as its forfeit position. Such an alarm would need turning off as people entered the pool but if it was to be effective the alarm would need to switch itself back on after a certain time, say one hour. Perhaps it could sound a warning as it counted down to switching itself back on, allowing swimmers time to press the button for another hour.
There may be effective safety devices on the market already, and if so they could be made more effective by having their installation compulsory.
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