Tampa, Florida -- It only takes a minute. In the same time it takes you to make a quick a phone call or throw in a load of dirty laundry, your child could drown.
Drowning is the leading cause of death for children in Florida between the ages of 1 and 4, according to the Florida Department of Health. As we enter into the new school year, here is something to consider: Florida loses the equivalent of four classrooms full of pre-K children each year to drowning.
Deaths that don't have to happen.
As part of its Waterproof Florida initiative, the FDOH is giving away free pool door alarms to pool owners with children in eight counties that had the highest rates of child drownings.
Three of those counties are in Tampa Bay: Hillsborough, Hernando and Sarasota. Other qualifying counties include Broward, Brevard, Lee, Miami-Dade, and Orange.
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"It's a few different things. It's a water watcher tag, which the person who has the tag in their hand would actually be the person in charge of supervising the children," explained Steve Huard with the Hillsborough County Department of Health. "It also comes with a very high-pitched alarm that goes onto the doors."
The alarms can attach to the windows and doors that lead out to your pool and can only be turned off manually once it sets off.
The devices are among the most cost-effective barriers you can put into place in your home, costing about $30.
Law requires at least one barrier for all pools built after 2000. The barriers can include alarms attached to all windows and doors leading to the pool, fences, approved covers, or specialty doors. But FDOH points out that 90 percent of the pools in Florida were built before the law took effect.
Barriers are only part of the safety measures the state is encouraging pool owners to take. Supervision and emergency preparedness (CPR) are the other areas people are being encouraged to focus on. This means designating an adult to supervise kids while they are in the water. You may want to consider having the supervising adult wear a tag as a reminder.
Of course, another biggie is swim safety. At the Seal Swim School in South Tampa, little ones as young as 16 months were taking lessons for the first time.
"One of the biggest things, if they fall in the water, what are they going to do? Obviously, you want them to grab the wall, but if they're so little, they're too young, not strong enough to pull themselves up, the first thing we teach them is floating," said swim instructor Danielle Adkins.
Adkins says the younger you can start with your kids, the better.
16-month-old Riley was already holding his breath underwater during his first lesson.
"With him being around the ocean, around pools, we want him to be safe," said his mother, Nicole.
Here are some other quick facts from the Florida Department of Health:
- Florida leads the nation in drowning deaths for children between the ages of one and four.
- Drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death nationwide.
- Florida residents under the age of ten are most likely to drown in a swimming pool.
- While drowning in Florida happens year round, the majority of non-fatal and fatal drownings occurs during the spring and summer months.