Lack of safe waterways putting children at risk during heatwaves
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What dangers do fresh waterways pose to children during heatwaves?
As temperatures are forecast to rise again over the coming days, people will flock to rivers, lakes and beaches to cool down. My next guest says drownings across the continent during the recent heatwave serve as a reminder about the dangers posed by water, particularly bodies of fresh water. Dr Suzanne Crowe is an intensive care consultant at CHI at Crumlin who has been writing about the issue in today's Irish Independent. She joins me on the line now. Good morning, Suzanne. Good morning.
Good morning, David.
Now, as I say, once the temperature rises, people do flock to the water and we all know that water is particularly attractive for children.
Yeah, no, that's absolutely correct. And we've done a couple of audits on this over the years in CHI and they show that children will seek out water in almost every location you can think of, from a bucket or a paddling pool in the back garden. to a pond or a river, all of which pose huge dangers to young children.
Now, obviously, the sea has its own dangers, but fresh water has particular properties that does add to the danger. Why is that?
Well, there's the water itself. The visibility doesn't tend to be as good. You get a lot of plants and algae growing in rivers. And then also, they're often quite shallow, which... Actually might sound like it's a good thing, but in fact means that you're more likely to encounter things like rocks or any other kind of debris that is submerged below the water that you wouldn't have been able to see. And that can cause problems for you when you're swimming.
Okay, and obviously rivers, the water is moving. You don't know about how hard the current is running. And freshwater isn't as buoyant as seawater.
No, because of the salt content. So there's no salt in freshwater. So it is a different swimming experience. So it's particularly important if you're on freshwater to be wearing a correctly fitting life jacket, even if you've no intention of getting into the water. If you're kayaking or even if you're fishing, it's a good idea to wear a life jacket.
OK, now you mentioned underwater obstacles and you're writing in that piece in the Indo I mentioned about caring for a child in Crumlin who got trapped in a shopping trolley that was submerged under the water.
Yeah, now that's many years ago, but it's obviously an experience that stays in your mind when you're thinking about children swimming in rivers or canals. You know, our cities are full of debris and particularly things like canals and rivers. You could be jumping in from a bridge and you won't see something like that below the water. And it's a very difficult thing to rescue somebody safely when they're entangled in something like that.
Yeah. Now, I mean, Water Safety Ireland run really good campaigns. We've all seen them. But you believe the government could be doing more, that the authorities could be doing more to protect kids?
Well, I mean, Water Safety Ireland do do a fantastic job and they particularly run education programs, both at preschool, primary and secondary level. And that's fantastic. They also support the training of lifeguards around the beaches of Ireland.
Why is visibility in freshwater important for safety?
But I do think that swimming lessons or the expense of swimming lessons is too much for a lot of families. And so particularly children living in poorer families, they're less likely to actually have access to swimming lessons. And I think that that's a big thing that we could do to provide children with the skills both to be able to swim safely, better water awareness, and then also to be able to rescue others.
Yeah, I mean, obviously moving up from the issue of children, but alcohol is a big factor in drownings as well, isn't it?
Yeah, I mean, across the whole age groups, alcohol is responsible for about 30% of drownings, alcohol and other medications. And that is a scenario you're going to see, particularly with teenagers or young people where they might have a few bears and then decide to get into the local river to have a swim. That's a dangerous combination because with rivers and canals as well, there doesn't tend to be lifeguards there.
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