CONCORD, N.C. — After multiple drowning deaths so far this summer, swim instructors across North Carolina are stressing the importance of swim lessons.
“[It] doesn’t matter if they're 6, 16, 26 – everybody is at risk of drowning," Micah Knutson, Senior Assistant Manager for the Big Blue Swim School in Concord, said. "The unfortunate reality is that kids and adults die around water. There are 4,000 drowning deaths annually for kids."
Another instructor, Lyndi Geyer with MSA Swim School, explained lessons are the perfect preventative measure to avoid these accidents.
“Pools are open, neighborhood pools, so if you can get your child in an organized lesson, there’s a greater rate that your child is not going to have a scary incident around a pool,” Geyer said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths for 5- to 14-year-olds, and every year, in the US, there are over 4,000 drowning deaths.
Swim instructors say for anyone going around the water, always make sure someone is watching the swimmer, let lifeguards or any instructor know if your child struggles with swimming, and, if you haven’t already, sign up for swim lessons as soon as possible.
When those scary incidents occur, they can look different and sometimes undetectable.
“Sometimes it’s loud and sometimes it’s quiet. I’ve seen kids go down splashing and waving their hands screaming and I’ve seen others get six inches too deep and they just slip under the surface,” Knutson detailed.
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