Two Teenagers Drown in Pella Pool

[fmclonefan]

Word is they may have jumped in somehow after everybody was to be out of the pool and heading to the buses. The group rented the facility after hours. The lifeguards were heading out as well with all the students and they were shutting the lights off. They did a head count on the buses and they were two short. Went back to the pool area, turned on the pool lights and the two boys were at the bottom of the deep end. They were both immigrants with some language barriers and neither could swim real well. Don't know why they jumped in again. Nobody knows. I'm sure that it was very chaotic with that many kids there just getting out of a pool and getting them out of the pool area. I can tell you, I have internationally adopted children and have had to jump in a pool before to rescue both of them because they were sure that they could swim because all the other kids could swim as well, but they couldn't swim like the others and my kids were both sneaky about it when they did jump in. So, I don't know the entire story as I wasn't there, but that is what I have heard. I live in the area.

[iahawkhunter]

Then how about not allowing them to do it, and kick them out if they persist?
Why would pools allow that game if it makes the lifeguards' job more difficult?
Lifeguards seem much more reticent to exert authority now than in the past.

It's very difficult to be effective with junior high and high school students, particularly if they're used to getting away with lots of shenanigans. Plus, despite being the one with the whistle, it's tough to deal with ticked off parents when they don't understand why their baby was chastised.

I do agree that not allowing that behavior is a correct course of action, and that is unfortunate that not all lifeguards react properly to such behavior. Unfortunately, scenarios like this are much easier to Monday-morning quarterback than to deal with in-the-moment. No matter how vigilant a lifeguard is, something tragic can always still happen and hindsight is always 20/20.

[CyPride]

Word is they may have jumped in somehow after everybody was to be out of the pool and heading to the buses. The group rented the facility after hours. The lifeguards were heading out as well with all the students and they were shutting the lights off. They did a head count on the buses and they were two short. Went back to the pool area, turned on the pool lights and the two boys were at the bottom of the deep end. They were both immigrants with some language barriers and neither could swim real well. Don't know why they jumped in again. Nobody knows. I'm sure that it was very chaotic with that many kids there just getting out of a pool and getting them out of the pool area. I can tell you, I have internationally adopted children and have had to jump in a pool before to rescue both of them because they were sure that they could swim because all the other kids could swim as well, but they couldn't swim like the others and my kids were both sneaky about it when they did jump in. So, I don't know the entire story as I wasn't there, but that is what I have heard. I live in the area.

sounds like this could very easily be the case. thanks for sharing your story.

[CycloneYoda]

Word is they may have jumped in somehow after everybody was to be out of the pool and heading to the buses. The group rented the facility after hours. The lifeguards were heading out as well with all the students and they were shutting the lights off. They did a head count on the buses and they were two short. Went back to the pool area, turned on the pool lights and the two boys were at the bottom of the deep end. They were both immigrants with some language barriers and neither could swim real well. Don't know why they jumped in again. Nobody knows. I'm sure that it was very chaotic with that many kids there just getting out of a pool and getting them out of the pool area. I can tell you, I have internationally adopted children and have had to jump in a pool before to rescue both of them because they were sure that they could swim because all the other kids could swim as well, but they couldn't swim like the others and my kids were both sneaky about it when they did jump in. So, I don't know the entire story as I wasn't there, but that is what I have heard. I live in the area.

If this is the case, and I think it is, some people here owe a HUGE apology to the lifeguards they were bashing.

[Cloned4Life]

Got this in an email today. Not that it applies to this instance, but a good read nonetheless.


The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the owners who were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”

How did this captain know, from fifty feet away, what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. Th e respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.

2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.

3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.

4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

(Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006)

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experience aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in there own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are n the water:

· Head low in the water, mouth at water level

· Head tilted back with mouth open

· Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus

· Eyes closed

· Hair over forehead or eyes

· Not using legs – Vertical

· Hyperventilating or gasping

· Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway

· Trying to roll over on the back

· Ladder climb, rarely out of the water.

So if a crew member falls overboard and every looks O.K. – don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them: “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare – you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

[Tornado man]

Word is they may have jumped in somehow after everybody was to be out of the pool and heading to the buses. The group rented the facility after hours. The lifeguards were heading out as well with all the students and they were shutting the lights off. They did a head count on the buses and they were two short. Went back to the pool area, turned on the pool lights and the two boys were at the bottom of the deep end.

This is very vague; was it verified that everyone was out of the pool, or just supposed to be out?

[iahawkhunter]

Got this in an email today. Not that it applies to this instance, but a good read nonetheless.

Great read. Thanks for posting!

[fmclonefan]

This is very vague; was it verified that everyone was out of the pool, or just supposed to be out?

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that. My understanding was that they were under the impression that everyone is out. Was everybody out for sure? I don't pretend to know the answer to that. My kids swim at that pool often and there are lifeguards all over the place. I can't imagine that they would not have seen two young African-American men at the bottom of a very well lit pool. This deep end is three sides of a rectangle and has 3-4 lifeguards watching. Regardless, this is a tragic story and is certainly jolting Pella's world.

[denmyster]

They are holding a prayer vigil at the Pella Aquatic Center tonight at 9:15. Sad situation.

[norseclone]

They are holding a prayer vigil at the Pella Aquatic Center tonight at 9:15. Sad situation.

A short ways into reading the thread, I planned on posting the same article Cloned4Life did. He beat me to it, but I'll go ahead and give you the link. There are some other good articles there.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

[Tornado man]

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that. My understanding was that they were under the impression that everyone was out. Was everybody out for sure? I don't pretend to know the answer to that. My kids swim at that pool often and there are lifeguards all over the place.

The Pella mayor's comments in the DMR:


“There’s a lot of questions in everyone’s mind,” said Darrell Dobernecker, mayor of Pella, who drove campers on a bus back and forth from the Pella Aquatic Center to Central College before and after the drowning.

He said the boys were spotted in the deep end near the diving boards after the whistle blew for campers to clear the pool at 9:30 p.m.

"It wasn't discovered until they were loading the buses to go back," Dobernecker said. "I feel for the lifeguards. It's a traumatic thing for them."

[isufan33]

Being a lifeguard, this is a scary thing to read about.. i really feel bad for those lifeguards

[Tornado man]

The DMR is reporting that the two boys' parents had indicated on waivers that the kids were non-swimmers, but those waivers were not brought to the pool. The boys then said they could swim. Sounds like the FCA is in big trouble.
Also, it appears the boys never left the pool before they were found at the bottom. Sounds like the city of Pella is in big trouble.
Just a question: why was there no deep-water swim test required?

Register exclusive: Boys who drowned in Pella pool were 'non-swimmers' | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register-

[iahawkhunter]

The DMR is reporting that the two boys' parents had indicated on waivers that the kids were non-swimmers, but those waivers were not brought to the pool. The boys then said they could swim. Sounds like the FCA is in big trouble.
Also, it appears the boys never left the pool before they were found at the bottom. Sounds like the city of Pella is in big trouble.
Just a question: why was there no deep-water swim test required?

Register exclusive: Boys who drowned in Pella pool were 'non-swimmers' | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register-

I've been to plenty of pools where I've seen a supposed swim test be required for entering the deep end or using the diving board. At each place if you simply walk up to the board or side of the pool and look as if you know what you're doing I've never seen a lifeguard hassle anyone. It's not as if you get a wristband or something like that after you complete a deep-water swim test, so you can take advantage of the anonymity of the crowd (which would be accentuated by the fact that lifeguards rotate stations at most pools, and when you arrive at your new station you don't know who the person ahead of you "tested").

Failing to bring the waivers was not necessarily a mistake since they wouldn't have been too useful at the pool itself. Waivers would only be useful if they were used to assign color-coded wristbands on each child based upon what their parent selected on the waiver. In the event that something happens (like this) having to go get a waiver out of a file cabinet as opposed to having it on-site with a counselor shouldn't be a problem.

You seem to be making some assumptions, namely that the boys didn't leave the pool and that no swim test was required. These two points could have quite an impact on determining where fault lies. Are you just making wild guesses or do you have something to back-up your hunches?

[asmosis]

I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind.

In regards to the article about Drowning doesn't look like drowning: I can say froom personal experience (more than once) where I've been in trouble and am flailing underwater, but I'm quiet and focused on trying to keep my head above water. Breathing is about the only thing you think about and honestly the only thing you can do when struggling in water. I'm a very weak swimmer and now know to stay where I can touch or quickly get back to a safe area. BUT, it doesn't matter how weak or strong a swimmer you are... everyone can get into trouble in water.

Great article. Pass it on.