Assemblymember Laurie Davies (R-Laguna Niguel) has partnered with the California Coalition for Children’s Safety and Health (CCCSH) to introduce AB 1005, a bill that will provide drowning prevention education in schools and provide swim lessons for low-income children across California.
“Drowning is 100% preventable. We must ensure all children have access to swim lessons to prevent these tragedies, regardless of how much money their parents make,” said Davies. “Educating children and their parents about drowning prevention will save lives.”
“After I lost my two-year-old son Cody to drowning, I dedicated my life to preventing this tragedy from happening to other parents,” stated Marcia Kerr, Spokesperson for the Drowning Prevention Foundation. “AB 1005 is a critical step we need to take if we want to make drowning rare, rather than common, in California.”
In California, drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1-4 and second for children ages 5-14. For every child who dies from drowning, 7 more receive emergency care for non-fatal drownings. The National Institutes of Health found that participation in formal swimming lessons lowers the risk of drowning for children ages 1-4 by 88%.
Swimming is an issue of access and equity, with 79% of children in households with incomes less than $50,000 having few or no swimming skills. Parents who don’t know how to swim are much more likely to have children who also lack swimming skills. African-American children are disproportionately impacted by a lack of water safety education, with a drowning death rate among African-American children ages 5–9 more than 2.5 times higher than the rest of the population. That rate grows to 3.5 times higher among African-American children ages 10-14. Additionally, drowning is the leading cause of death for children and adults with autism, who are nearly 40 times more likely to drown than the general population.
Educating parents and providing no-cost swim lessons for children will create a culture of water safety and prevent drownings. With 840 miles of coastline, 3,000 lakes, 1,400 reservoirs, 50,000 ponds, and more than 1.3 million swimming pools, the prevalence of open water across California underscores the need to expand access to swim lessons for children throughout the state.
Read More: https://www.ivpressonline.com/news/california-briefs-assemblymember-introduces-bill-to-prevent-child-drownings/article_2c1827f8-24c5-416e-be58-71d5cce6b23c.html