A TRAGIC DROWNING - THIS ONE REALLY HITS HOME

A few weeks ago a 14 month old baby boy drowned in his grandparents' backyard swimming pool in Clearwater, Florida. This drowning made the local news and of course, as does every senseless drowning, made me shake my head because I know, as the manufacturer of pool safety fences, that every drowning is avoidable. Just yesterday I ran into an acquaintance and during the course of our conversation she told me that her nephew had recently passed away. Shocked, I asked her what happened and she told me that he drowned in his grandparents' swimming pool in Clearwater. That's when I realized that this is the baby I heard about on the news. There was no swimming pool fence around the swimming pool and there were many people at the house that tragic afternoon. No one person was designated to watch the baby and he slipped out the back door and fell into the pool. No adult realized he was missing until it was too late. This is such a senseless and unnecessary death....a pool safety fence would have saved this baby's life. The family is completely devastated and they have now had the pool filled in with concrete so that they're not reminded every day of the spot where little Jake died.

Over the years I've read about tragic drownings hundreds of times and worked on pool safety committees to bring awareness of the importance of a swimming pool safety fence to swimming pool owners, as well as those people who own a pool and have small children visit the house often. This is the first time, and hopefully the last, that the victim will be related to someone I know. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family of this baby and my hope is, as always, that people will realize that they can make their pools safe and secure by placing a pool fence around the pool.