First Responders Stress Importance Of Water Safety For Young Kids

First responders want families to understand the important of water safety for young kids.

Paramedics said it only takes seconds for a child to start drowning in even the smallest amounts of water.

John Laymon remembers the horrifying moment when his young daughter fell into a lake without a life jacket a few years ago.

“Your chest is tight, you can’t breathe,” said Laymon. “Time pauses but it also just flies by in the blink of an eye.”

Fortunately, Laymon said his daughter was able to float and tread water until the family was able to rescue her. He credits her survival to enrolling her in classes at Miller Swim School.

“Without those classes, she would have panicked and probably swallowed water and went under before we could find her in the cloudy lakes in Oklahoma,” said Laymon.

Other young students are in swim school to learn how to safely approach water and what to do in situations where things can go wrong. Without this knowledge, paramedics said things can go real bad real quick.

“Children even up to the age of four, they don’t know how to yell, they don’t scream,” said Kayla Stack, EMSA Oklahoma. “They don’t splash into the water, they lie vertically in the water with their head down, hair over their head.”

EMSA Oklahoma said it responded to 18 drownings last summer.

The first responder in these situations will often be the person who finds someone drowning, so it is important for everyone to know CPR until medics can get to the scene.

“Anytime water actually touches the vocal chords, your vocal chords will actually close off,” said Stack. “This is when you begin drowning because it’s trying to protect you from the water entering your lungs."

Paramedics said someone needs to keep an eye on kids at all times when around water. They also encourage the installation of gates or alarms around pools at home.