For many years, we’ve been updating and educating our loyal fans about different ways to reduce drowning risks around their homes. Our goal is to expand drowning prevention awareness to every single home.
Even if you don’t own a a swimming pool, your child faces many potential drowning risks. A new report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission confirms what we’ve been saying for years: It can take just a few inches of water for a young child to drown.
Here are some important facts from the report:
- Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death among children ages 1 to 4 years-old
- It takes only a few inches of water for a young child to drown.
- With products such as bathtubs, buckets, bath seats, toilets, and landscaping features indicates that from 2006 to 2010, there were 684 incidents involving children younger than five-years-old. This figure includes 434 fatalities (an average of 87 per year), 233 injuries, and 17 incidents with no known injuries.
- 82% of the victims were younger than the age of two and 81% of the incidents involved bathtubs or bath related products.
- Bathtubs are the second leading location where young children drown.
- 92% of the incidents occurred in residential settings.
- 28 % of fatalities involved a lapse in supervision, such as a parent or caregiver leaving the bathroom to answer the phone or door, or retrieving a towel.
- 23% of the fatalities involved, the child was left with another child, usually older.
- In 10% of the fatalities involved a product found outside the home, including decorative yard equipment or a bucket
- 3% were found inside the home in a bucket, container or trash basket that was being used for cleaning.
Chairman Inez Tenenbaum said: “Too many young children are drowning,” Just as with pools, I urge parents and caregivers to childproof their home and constantly supervise young children around bathtubs, bath seats and buckets. Taking extra safety steps at home can help prevent a tragic drowning.”
We couldn’t agree more.
