 Pool and Water Safety
Each year, as the temperature rises, residents head to the pool for fun in the sun. While the atmosphere is exciting, the situation can turn grim quickly. Seconds Count, a swimming pool, pond, lake, canal, bathtub, toilet, or even a bucket of water can spell disaster for a child.
Eye-to-Eye Supervision is the key to drowning prevention. Follow these simple steps to ensure that a water tragedy does not take place in your backyard or elsewhere under your supervision.
- Never leave a child unobserved around the pool.
- Designate a "water watcher," someone who will maintain eye-to-eye supervision at all times.
- Enclose your yard and pool with a self-closing, self-locking fence with vertical bars less than four inches apart. Pools constructed after Aug. 7, 1993, also must have an interior barrier (at least five feet high) in additional to the exterior fencing requirements.
- Install self-closing, self-latching hardware on all doors leading into the pool area.
- Keep furniture and toys away from the pool fence so that children cannot climb over it. Trim trees inside and outside of the fence so that children cannot use them to climb into the pool area.
- Keep toys and pets away from the pool to prevent falls and to avoid distractions that might draw children to the pool area without proper supervision.
- Keep basic lifesaving equipment (a pole, rope, or a life preserver) near the pool.
- Install a phone by the pool or keep a cordless battery nearby, so no one has to go inside to answer a call when watching someone in the pool. For an emergency call 9-1-1.
- Every caregiver should know CPR, cardio pulmonary resuscitation!
Visit the Chandler Aquatics Division website for information on swimming lessons. Visit the Chandler Fire Department website for more water and pool safety information.
Additional Water Safety Links
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