With school

out and the hot, humid days of summer vacation settling

like a cloak on our communities, there is but one thing

on our minds - swimming. Here in Fayette, we are

teeming with children and lots and lots of opportunities

to beat the heat in backyard, neighborhood and community

pools.

Now with the state-imposed

outdoor watering ban, sprinkling and kiddie pools are

out, and large swimming pools are all that's left to cool

our parched bodies. In the interest of public safety, I

share the following testimonial - not so that you

can be haunted like me, but so that each of us will

heighten our awareness and attention and have a safe and

happy summer.

Three years ago, my

youngest child was 2. Every summer, we spend a week with

my sister and her three children, playing with our

cousins, cooking out, watching matinee movies in the

crisp coolness of the local theater, and swimming in her

neighborhood pool.

Near the end of swim time

one afternoon, with hardly anyone left swimming, in a

pool staffed by two lifeguards, I let my mind wander for

just a few seconds. My 2-year-old, who had been playing

happily with cups and bowls on the steps of the pool,

slipped off the lower step and became submerged.

I couldn't have diverted my

attention for more than a few blinks of the eye, but when

I looked toward the pool, my toddler was floating

suspended, arms stretched out to her sides, feet and legs

straight, her body in a vertical position, with the water

surface just inches above the top of her head. She wasn't

flailing or struggling, just floating.

I spanned a space of about

three yards in one step, and lunged into the pool. I

scooped her out of the water and moved to the side of the

pool. She was fully awake and alert, coughing just a

little, and to my endless haunting, too shocked to cry.

She spit just a mouthful of water, and had normal color

and motor response.

My sister, a pediatrician,

checked her out right there, and she was fine. I, on the

other hand, was anything but fine. Even today, three

years later, the image of her floating in that pool, in a

position of complete supplication, can produce a physical

quickening in my chest, a tremor of anxiety in my limbs,

and from time to time add an extra few minutes to my

occasional sleeplessness.

In retrospect, I can say I

learned a lot that day. I thank God for the gentle and

merciful nudge at my maternal instincts and parental

abilities. I always had a healthy respect for the water,

but now I have a measure of healthy fear.

It was only an instant, and

it happened within 15 feet of the lifeguard's chair. I

was reminded that day that the lifeguard's role is to

prevent and address unsafe play, to keep a general watch

over everyone in the pool, and to apply life saving

techniques to victims of near drowning. My job is to

watch my children unceasingly. It was a strong lesson,

and for me, one with eternal ripples.

I was lucky. Others are

not. In 1997, the latest year for which statistics are

available, "nearly 1,000 children ages 14 and under

drowned," in the in this country, according to the

National Safe Kids Campaign. Children under the age of 4

"accounted for more than half of these deaths."

In fact, the National Safe Kids Campaign reports that,

"more than 85 percent of drownings among children

ages 1-4 are pool-related." According to the Centers

for Disease Control Injury Prevention Division, 53

children drowned in Georgia in 1997, at a rate slightly

higher than the national rate.

The National Safe Kids

Campaign encourages parents to never leave a child

unattended, "even for a moment," and to

understand that swimming lessons and personal flotation

devices cannot be relied upon to protect a child.

"Learn CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and keep

rescue equipment, a telephone, and emergency numbers

poolside."

Summer times are happy

times and water safety is the recreational equivalent of

the seatbelt. I hope that our story will nudge your

instincts a little, too. For more information on summer

safety in Fayette County, contact Robert Kurbes, county

environmental health specialist and Fayette County Safe

Kids Coordinator at 770-631-0743.

[Your comments are

welcome: [email protected].]