Parents urged to appoint a ‘Responsible Pool Person’ at events near water

With more than 50 Australians having lost their lives to drowning incidents over the summer period, water safety advocate Laurie Lawrence is calling on party organisers to nominate a ‘Responsible Pool Person’ to watch over swimmers at community and family events near water over the Australia Day weekend.

Lawrence has joined with Poolwerx - for whom he acts as an ambassador – to advise that nominating a designated adult to supervise swimmers is one of the safest ways to avert tragedy.

The former Olympic swimming coach states “kids, in particular, can get themselves into trouble very quickly in pools and with so much going on at parties, it’s not good enough to just expect that someone will be keeping an eye on swimmers.

“Poolwerx has created the concept of nominating a Responsible Pool Person for parties to ensure safety is a priority and that someone is dedicated to supervision and not distracted.”

Lawrence and Poolwerx offer the following tips for safe waterside gatherings this Australia Day:

• Keep your pool area safe: Ensure pool fencing and self-closing gates and lockable latches are working properly, have a compliant CPR chart displayed within your pool area and ensure there are no objects surrounding the pool a child could use to climb on to and enter the pool area.
• Appoint a ‘Responsible Pool Person’: Nominate a person or a number of people to take turns being the ‘Responsible Pool Person’ to ensure supervision is constant in the pool area for every swimmer experienced or otherwise.
• Keep your pool water healthy: Ensure water is balanced and fi for swimming by maintaining healthy pH and Chlorine levels. Chlorine levels should remain at 3-5 Parts Per Million (PPM) and pH levels should be between 7.2 and 7.6.
• Don’t drink and swim: Don’t swim while intoxicated and avoid bringing glass products into the pool area.
• Stay sun safe: Ensure adequate protection from the sun – sunscreen, hats, sunglasses and water are must-haves.

For more information go to www.poolwerx.com.au/responsible/