Watching Amy Pool Safety

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In the heat of summer, swimming pools attract children, and unfortunately, drowning statistics rise. The Redlands Fire Department is one of many departments working to educate the public on the risks of childhood drowning. In 2008, two friends from the Redlands Fire Department, Rob Sandberg and Al Stevens, wanted to make a public service announcement about pool safety. They created "Watching Amy", a video about childhood drowning explaining the ABC's of drowning prevention.

"We wanted to make a dramatic type of PSA where someone would actually sit through the whole thing and then go through the educational portion at the end as well," Fire Captain Rob Sandberg states. Retired Battalion Chief Al Stevens said that when they started the video, their thought was to "reach out and grab the heart of people and make them think about what could happen."

In 2009, the city of Redlands alone experienced 1 drowning and one near drowning. The statistics in the county were even greater.   Sandberg explains that the biggest thing that can be done to prevent drownings and near drownings "is getting your kids into swim lessons and making them comfortable in the pool. Aside from the normal rules of never leaving them unsupervised whether they can swim or whether they cant."

The ABC's of drowning prevention are as follows:

A: Adult Supervision

There must be an adult who is trained in CPR supervising children in the pool, at all times. "It takes 5 seconds for a kid to go under and drown, without a sound as well. There's no substitute for someone out there watching the kids," Sandberg remarks. Al Stevens claims that the Redlands Fire Department offers classes such as those for cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR) and babysitters, however, he emphasizes that parental supervision must come #1.

B: Barriers

There are many different forms of barriers, including doors from the home and pool fences to isolate the pool from the home. Sandberg expresses that the most important features barriers must have is that they are self closing and latching. Also, that if it is going from the house to the pool, they have an alarm on them. That way, if the barrier opens when an adult is not looking, they will hear the alarm inside the home. Stevens declares that even if residents have barriers around the pool area, they must still be cautious because, "Children are curious. They love being in water, playing in water. If there's a toy in the water, it tends to draw them to the water. They'll go around the fences."

C: Classes

Learn how to perform CPR and teach children how to swim. "Everybody needs to learn CPR so if something does happen to one of your children or another family member, someone you're baby sitting, whoever it may be, that you're able to start resuscitation efforts and restart the breathing process before the emergency responders get there," Rob Sandberg says.

Educating children, parents and guardians is the only way to prevent a tragedy. With a $500 anonymous donation Al Stevens and Rob Sandberg were able to produce the "Watching Amy" dvd and start distributing it to other cities. Sandberg comments, " We're gonna start in local schools in our area and we're actually developing a drowning safety/drowning prevention program in the city so we can get out to the schools, talk to the younger kids up to age 8, talk to the teachers, talk to the parents. We're going to try and put on some live presentations of the video as well as the safety portion."


Author:Barbara Brooks - Video, Renee Marquart - Text