Watch the video of her rescue at sea. My heart was in my throat. "She's just a baby!" I thought. Her parents are lucky she is alive.
Never let a child without a life jacket near a pool or body of water.
At four, I nearly drowned in my grandparent's pool. Kicking with a kick board, I motored into the deep end. After two swim lessons, I couldn't swim yet. Felt strong with a kick board. I was alone in the pool, strictly forbidden. Suddenly lost my grip. The kick board shot away. I floundered.
Mom walked outside and spotted me floating face-down. Hugely pregnant, she immediately dove in and rescued me. A nurse, she gave me CPR.
The horrible, frantic feeling of losing the kick board is seared in my memory.
The Story-
I had a near risk as well but I don't remember it. As a result my mom never allowed me to take swim lessons. She took my brother which made no sense but my mom is a narcisstic control freak which explains much. All I can wonder is WHAT parent doesn't keep their child in sight when it concerns water???? This would destroy me as a mom if it had happened to me.
This story walloped me: feeling frantic, shame that I couldn't swim, frustration when I couldn't catch the kickboard, helplessly foundering.
I became an excellent swimmer and a YMCA swim instructor. In my 20s, 30s and 40s, I swam laps for fitness. Without flip-turns, I swam a half mile in less than nine minutes.
Made sure my daughter Claire learned to swim well.
Claire's dad Terry couldn't swim when I met him. I taught him to swim. No one in his family could swim: common with Latinos. Terry's 12 year-old sister drowned in New Mexico in the river where they drew drinking water.
Her and that unicorn will be besties for life!
Au contraire. Due to trauma and fear, she will likely be afraid of unicorn floats from now on.
Years ago I was at the beach with a few friends, one of them a woman with two kids, 4 and 5, who were playing in the shallows, knee deep to child, with a floatie and with bouancy supports on their arms, no more than 10 metres away. While we watched a gust of wind quickly blew the floatie with one child out of the shallows in seconds and with the child clinging to it continued to blow it away as fast as an adult could run, let alone swim. The mother screamed to the child to let go of the floatie but the kid was scared and wouldn't. We were able to quickly launch a boat and retrieve the kid from over a kilometer offshore, but it was very lucky. We were all experienced swimmers and I wouldn't have believed a wind could move the child that fast if I hadn't seen it, so I understand how it would be an easy mistake to make and I sympathise with the mother.