My kids started swimming lessons as tiny tots and went through all the levels of Red Cross fairly young. Anyway, when they were young, we belonged to a sports center, primarily to use the pool, and it was part of the resort where we lived. One time, I was in the shallow end with my 4 year old daughter. My 2 year old daughter was occupying herself on a lounge chair. I’d say there were less than a dozen people in the pool and less than 2 dozen on the deck area. The pool had a lifeguard. My 2 year old got up off her chair and started running and accidentally ran into the deep end of the pool and fell in, not intending to. I had to be about 15 feet away. I was horrified but within one second, a lady who was standing at that same spot where D fell in, and was in her tennis outfit chatting with pool guests, jumped right in all dressed and just scooped D. It was like in a split second. D was totally fine and not even flustered. I was very shaken up. I also wondered where the lifeguard was. It turned out, the lifeguard was not in the pool area at all. When I had entered the pool area, the lifeguard was there and a sign saying “lifeguard on duty” was on the entrance gate to the fenced in pool. But the lifeguard was taking a lunch break and had left the pool. In my view, there was a false sense of thinking the pool was being watched by a lifeguard and I think he could have informed the small number of parents with kids there that he was leaving the pool and it would be unattended so we would know. Even so, it was my mistake to not keep any flotation device on my two year old while she was not in the pool. I was so shaken up that I took the kids inside to a phone (no cell phones then) to call my husband to tell him. My kids were likely wondering why Mommy was a basket case because they felt fine.
Now, as you can see, soooo many of us are relating stories of water mishaps with our children and others’ children and some even worse, where death by drowning occurred. I’d like to think I was a very dedicated and responsible parent and an overly cautious type too. And the way I see, most CC parents likely were/are too…I mean, we are on CC, right? We all have tried to do our best with our kids. And yet, we cannot prevent every accident, even if we are diligent. Obviously, there are degrees of such diligence and childcare, but even under the best intentions, negative things can happen and we cannot prevent every single bad thing.
I feel heartsick for Bode and his wife on the tragic loss of their toddler, which they will never fully get over. It is even ironic in some ways, knowing that Bode was/is in a high risk sport (know of him as we were a ski racing family). My hope is that people do not blame them and that they can go easy on themselves and not feel a sense of blame, but simply a tragic accident occurred. The feeling of blame on top of the grief of their loss would be even worse. Many of us shared stories here…it could have been us, even if we think it would not have happened because we were so careful with our kiddies.