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Lifesaving Society to teach residents about summer water safety

Jul 18, 2016 | 7:00 PM

Residents hoping to learn how to keep themselves and their families safe around water can head to the provincial park this weekend.

The Lifesaving Society is holding a special Water Smart program at the main beach in the Battlefords Provincial Park on Saturday, July 23.

The program, hosted in five other provincial parks this summer, is flexible based on who shows up and what they need to learn, Shelby Rushton of the Lifesaving Society said.

“Basically we want people to leave understanding how to keep themselves and family members safe in, on and around water whenever they’re around it, whether that be a lake, a river, a swimming pool or their backyard pool,” she said.

The program is part of National Drowning Prevention Week, meant to stress the importance of water safety.

Rushton said the number one way people can keep themselves safe is to learn to swim and enroll their children in swimming lessons.

“Not only just taking swimming lessons, but realizing that it doesn’t happen just to someone else, it could happen to you,” she said. “I consider myself a strong swimmer and I could even get into trouble.”

Simply putting on a lifejacket or personal flotation device before getting on a boat or being near water could save a lot of lives, she said. Of all drowning deaths, 80 per cent of people were not wearing a lifejacket or PFD.

Another preventable factor in many drowning deaths is alcohol. Rushton said to save summer drinks for after water activities.

Some things people could learn from the Water Smart program this weekend are CPR and how to rescue someone from shore. Rushton said instructors also often focus on how to safely bring little kids around water.

Rushton said although there has been a lot of improvement, northern Saskatchewan sees a higher rate of drowning than other parts of the province. That’s due to many communities being surrounded by lakes and rivers and a lower availability of swimming lessons.

She said in the last two decades, the Lifesaving Society has worked to bring swimming lessons to northern communities and the statistics have improved, but she wants to see the rate at zero.

The Water Smart program will be at the Battlefords Provincial Park on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.

 

Sarah Rae is battlefordsNOW’s court and crime reporter. She can be reached at Sarah.Rae@jpbg.ca or tweet her @sarahjeanrae.