The Tragedy of Bode Miller's Baby Daughter

Parent Cafe
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@ gudmom I am capable of sympathy & compassion, while at the same time as questioning; neither is exclusive of the other. and for sure, I won’t be donating to the GoFundMe.
Sadly, I am all too aware of the costs of emergency medical attention, even with very good insurance. However, before I’d ask complete strangers to help me out, I’d swallow my pride and turn to family and friends. In the scheme of things, $40K (which is what they, or their proxies, are attempting to raise), is peanuts. Kids, fans, hard working people, donating their $5 & $10, does not sit well with me, and that’s ok We can disagree. They did not set up the GoFundMe page themselves, their midwives did, however, they (the Millers( are promoting the link in the social media bios. It is not a scam and they are aware of the fund. The generosity of strangers is a wonderful thing, and while I don’t profess to know the Miller’s financial situation, appearances would not suggest they need $40k.

Not that you would know this, but, even with God’s grace, I TOO lost somebody in a very similar drowning circumstance, and I’ve never forgotten. I was eight at the time and it’s not a memory that fades. Given my personal loss, I think it is ok for me to ponder the question “when will people learn?” And, no, I can’t say I’ve never lost track of my kids, I even purchased a harness after losing my daughter - my son was 5 and he disappeared for over an hour - we called the police, and he was found sampling food in Costco. Those are just two of the several times I lost track of my kids. Things happen, parents are careless (incl me), nobody is perfect, but some things are hard to come back from - and unguarded water and kids don’t mix.

All that said, it is a tragic accident that no parent, or family, should have to experience; they will be forever haunted, and for that, I am deeply sorry for them.

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Are there still municipalities where fences around pools aren’t mandatory??

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Drowning victims are actually more likely to be experienced swimmers than non-swimmers. You only think you don’t have to worry. Not reality.

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@doschicos In California, where this accident happened, residential pools are required to have at least two of the following; it looks to be that a fence is optional if two of the other conditions are met:

An enclosure that isolates the swimming pool or spa from the private single-family home.

Removable mesh fencing that meets American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Specifications F2286 standards in conjunction with a gate that is self-closing and self-latching and can accommodate a key lockable device.

An approved safety pool cover

Exit alarms on the private single-family home’s doors that provide direct access to the swimming pool or spa. The exit alarm may cause either an alarm noise or a verbal warning, such as a repeating notification that “the door to the pool is open.”

A self-closing, self-latching device with a release mechanism placed no lower than 54 inches above the floor on the private single-family home’s doors providing direct access to the swimming pool or spa.

An alarm that, when placed in a swimming pool or spa, will sound upon detection of accidental or unauthorized entrance into the water. The alarm shall meet and be independently certified to the ASTM Standard F2208 “Standard Safety Specification for Residential Pool Alarms,” which includes surface motion, pressure, sonar, laser, and infrared type alarms. A swimming protection alarm feature designed for individual use, including an alarm attached to a child that sounds when the child exceeds a certain distance or becomes submerged in water, is not a qualifying drowning prevention safety feature.

Other means of protection, if the degree of protection afforded is equal to or greater than that afforded by any of the features set forth above and has been independently verified by an approved testing laboratory as meeting standards for those features established by the ASTM or the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

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Just asking because several people referenced fences like they were optional. I was surprised to read that.

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" About 4 weeks in to the daily practices and they were swimming like fish and I didn’t have to worry about them again."

Maybe not so much at a pool where you know water conditions. But what about other venues?
Around here at the beach and certain known spots (at least to locals) it’s possible to get trapped in rip tides.Warnings are taken seriously by locals but visitors don’t always understand.
The water is calm and beautiful on top–with a huge current below the surface you can’t see. You can feel the tug walking into one–ilike a brick wall at times.

I grew up in a beach town so it’s always been one of the first lessons to learn–what to do if the current grabs you . You can’t out power a strong current. People who were reportedly strong swimmers have died sometimes in a rescue attempt. (Never swim against it–swim 90 degrees to try to escape the current and you might end up a long way from where you started)

Just playing in the surf on a beach with no safety hazards AT ALL will move you down the coast slowly. Riding a float, body surfing. It can be imperceptible. No cause for alarm at all but just realize it happens. Our first lesson as kids was to look carefully at where we started and get our initial bearings. Pick out the landmarks Where’s the hotel? The beach blanket? Where might you end up? Where you go in the water might not be where you come out.
Look up, get out of the water and re-group occasionally to get back to original spot.

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Regarding kids that can swim still drowning. We had an instance at our community pool, with lifeguards, parents, swimmers all there where we almost lost a 10 year boy from the swim team. They were playing a game trying to go the furthest under water in one breath. It took a litte for anyone to realize that he wasn’t moving anymore. Fortunately the lifeguards were well trained and the rescue went well with no lasting harm. The company that manages the lifeguards does unannounced drills where they drop a flat cut out of a person into the pool and time how long it takes one of the guards to notice because most drownings are quiet.

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Sure, there are accidents that can happen to anyone. I also taught my kids never to do any kind of breath-holding games because I was aware of shallow water blackouts. And experienced swimmers are more likely to be drowning victims simply because they’re more likely to be in the water more than inexperienced swimmers. I still felt confident that my kids were capable of extricating themself from any situation in a poll.

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One of our very sad cases was a young teen who was standing in water only up to his knees. The next thing folks saw he was pulled out by the tide and then he was “rescued by lifeguard.” The EMTs did CPR on him but he died either en route to the hospital or in the ER.

Water is very dangerous and tides even moreso. I don’t understand folks who have their “older kids” watch the “younger kids.” Often the “older kids” aren’t all that much older than the “younger kids.” I still remember an adult childless relative who was playing with toddlers once by a pool and then walked off. The owner of the pool asked, hey, why are those kids by the pool? The relative said, “I don’t know; I’m done playing with them.” Those toddlers were hustled into the house and far away from the pool!

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There is also a condition known as super-aerated water which occurs near certain types of dams, but which can also occur naturally. They are sometimes termed “drowning machines”.

They are more likely to take chances that inexperienced swimmers would not. It isn’t just a case of statistically being in the water more.

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D2’s daycare center took them to a pool when she was 3 for an outing. D hid when it was time to go home (in the locker room, but they didn’t know that) and terrified her caregivers, who thought she might still be in the pool. They made a rule for her afterwards that one of her parents had to come on any daycare outings after that. I’d like to say it was the only time she did anything like that, but it wasn’t. :frowning:

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“Just asking because several people referenced fences like they were optional. I was surprised to read that.”

New construction and pools that get work that requires a permit will mean that the pool has to conform to current code and have a fence. There are plenty of homes around here where the pool was built before the codes required a fence and no work has been done on the pool since then that required a permit, so the pool remains without a fence.

When we moved into our current house in 2007, the neighbors to one side did not have a pool fence. At the time my boys were 2 and 7. I wasn’t especially worked up about the lack of fence around their pool because as I mentioned earlier, we all live directly on the bay, so my own yard ends in 150’ of unfenced drop into the bay as does theirs. Frankly, in cases like that, I think requiring a pool fence is dumb.

They got one about 3 years later at the request of their new insurer who indicated they should install one to minimize liability. They asked me first if I’d like them to put one in and I said it wasn’t necessary and it was completely up to them.

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"One of our very sad cases was a young teen who was standing in water only up to his knees. The next thing folks saw he was pulled out by the tide and then he was “rescued by lifeguard.”

We encountered this once. Only three feet from the shore and only in three feet of water was a current in a narrow powerful stream that ran parallel to the shore. It could knock you over if you weren’t ready for it.

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My son’s middle school used to do a week-long science trip every spring. That ended after a 14 yo nearly drowned at the hotel pool. It’s not just little ones who need supervision.

Our honeowners insurance requires various safety features on homes with a pool. We don’t have one (it was an automatic disqualifying factor when we were house hunting), but our policy listed terms and conditions if we had bought a home with a pool.

S1 passed his college swim test by backfloating. Due to sensory issues, he could never handle swim lessons. It still worries me.

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Even if kids are good swimmers, when they’re playing around, one migh panic or swallow some water or somehow get trapped.

Folks drown at water parks as well, including some of our clients. Water can have tides and currents you can’t see that can move you away from shore.

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With only one child, I was that helicopter parent who always stayed at b/d parties. At the ocean, my son always had me or a grandparent with him when he ventured into the water. He was never in the pool without me sitting on the edge. I feel incredibly fortunate that nothing happened when he was with a grandparent or a close friend’s house. We all have pools. My son and I did a lot of snorkeling. When my son was in 9th grade, he became certified with CPR. I feel fortunate in that I let him go with friends to the water park and I don’t know how much supervision there was.

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I was the captain of my swim team in high school and swam for my first two years of college, yet during the orientation program for my junior year in France I nearly drowned at a beach in Biarritz. I was caught in a rip current and even though I knew what to do, the current was too strong for me. The only thing that saved me was a huge wave that knocked me out of the riptide. I was able to swim to shore after that minus my bikini bottom! Of course, when I made it to the beach, the no swimming flags were posted (I had swum out with friends during the safe period, dozed off on a rock offshore, then the tide came in!), and the lifeguards yelled at me for being in the water. They didn’t seem to mind that my bottoms were missing!

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Baby kid was a competitive swimmer… she was fearless in the ocean. I would never let her snorkel without her sister or myself and/or dad, and it drove her bananas. When she was with dad, it was exhausting to constantly keep an eye on her watching them from the beach because dad would occasional let her do things that would certainly give me a heart attack! Like diving into a cave…

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Young kids, even those who swim well, are very poor at risk assessment. I know a red cross level 4 age 6 swimmer than drowned and died in a pool full of people with life guards on duty. Kids 8 and under should have a parent at pool side ready to enter the water and watching at all times. And possibly older with weaker swimmers or kids with impulse control and risk assessment issues. Some kids especially in front of peers are more than ready to take risks they otherwise might not. The link above about how drowning doesn’t actually look like drowning is a good one.

Not one of us is a perfect parent. Unfortunately some hands off parenting can lead to death.

My kids have sensory quirks. It took many many years of lessons including private lessons to get them through red cross level 6. But it was very high priority for us as someone who lives in the land of 10,000 lakes and 20,000 swimming pools. It also took me forever to get through those levels but I am grateful to my parents for pushing.

I’m very sad for this family. What a horrible loss.

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When ds#2 was probably around 4 we were at a party standing with the hosts near the pool, holding DS’s hand. He slipped loose and went right to the bottom of the pool. DH went in, fully clothed, right after him. Was truly scary.
The earlier comment about the “wealthy white” vs “the poor trash minority’s” was, IMO, distasteful.