Pool Safety For The Elderly

Pool safety is not just a necessary concern for parents with young children. The subject of pool safety and pool fences has many faces. I recently installed a fence for a family that had no small children and no pets. The pool fence was installed for their elderly mother. They had a couple of scary moments with their mother being around the pool. Unfortunately, the mother has Alzheimer's disease and is no longer aware of the dangers of the swimming pool. If you have a swimming pool in your backyard you should be aware of everyone that comes into your hard; young and old alike can become victims of an unprotected swimming pool. Be aware and become secure. The safety of others is in your hands. Pool fences can protect people of all ages.

Chris Rastad
Pool Guard of Los Angeles

Pool Guard Saves The Day In a "Giant" Way!

On the Saturday morning before the Super Bowl we received a telephone call from a potential customer who was in dire straights. He and his wife were planning a large Super Bowl party the next day and realized that there were going to be several small children at their home for the festivities. He desperately needed a pool fence installed THAT day. He realized that with a house full of adults glued to the Super Bowl nobody would be properly watching the little ones, who could easily gain access to the pool area. Our schedule was full, but somehow we managed to accommodate this customer's needs and got the pool fence installed around his swimming pool on Saturday evening.

Needless to say, the customer was very grateful to us for going the extra yard (no pun intended!) and everybody was able to relax and enjoy the Super Bowl and more importantly, the little ones were protected by the pool having a pool safety fence around it.

Greg & Vanessa Young
Pool Guard of South Florida

All American Backyard Concepts - My First Home Show

The weekend of October 5-6-7 was an unusually sunny one for Northern California. On Thursday, the 4th, I joined my dad (and business partner!) at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds, site of the fall 2007 Alameda County Home Show. We were meeting Kevin, the guy who was helping us set up our backdrop. "You gotta have a good backdrop," my dad told me, "or else no one's even gonna look at your booth." Kevin showed up with two helpers in tow; they were dragging along what looked like a huge oil drum. It turned out to be the container for our rented backdrop. While we chatted with Kevin, his two assistants opened the drum and started pulling out all kinds of crazy parts. Within minutes, they were done; Kevin and I had barely finished shaking hands.

As Kevin was leaving, Kari came rushing up to us. "Vern!" she called out to my dad, a huge grin plastered across her face. "You're here ahead of schedule! What's wrong?" Tucking her clipboard under her arm, the event coordinator turned to me. "You must be the son I've heard about! How are you, dear? You're obviously doing a good job already--usually Vern scrambles around at the last minute trying to get everything together!" My dad had told me that everyone loved Kari, now I understood why. She bubbled with enthusiasm, clearly loving her job, and making the sometimes mundane act of setting up a home show seem like one heck of a good time.

On Friday, when the show started, we positioned ourselves in front of our backdrop, smiling proudly beneath our new "Pool Guard" banner. Enlarged photos of past installations lined our booth, drawing patrons in with their gorgeous colors of the pools and the clean, straight lines of the fences. I did a lot of listening that day, taking mental notes on how my dad talked to people, letting them know the wonders of the see-thru mesh and removable poles. I heard him extol the virtues of the self-closing gate, with its magnetic locking mechanism, and watched as people began to comprehend the value of the Pool Guard system. I took down a lot of leads that day, with my eyes on the coming weeks, and the many sales calls we'd be heading out on.

The rest of the weekend was kind of a blur; I remember six-dollar hot dogs, and the pretty girl at the next booth who was helping her dad sell real estate. At some point I had to buy myself gel inserts for my shoes in an attempt to ease my aching feet, but it was a good kind of ache, coming as it did from meeting so many wonderful people and helping them take a small step towards protecting their children.

In two weeks, we'll be heading out to our next home show, this time in Concord; we've got some new photos to display and an even better backdrop this time around. Now that I know how much fun it is, I can't wait to do it all again -- but this time I've got a cooler so I can bring my own lunch! If you're in Northern California, come on down to the home show and stop by booth 198 to say hello--we'll be the father and son in matching All American shirts. We're looking forward to seeing you!

My First Home Show
by Scout Davidson
All American Backyard Concepts (San Francisco Bay Area)

Proactive Safety

On Sat. 9/1 a five year old drowned and died in Miramar. It was not the home owner’s child but a friend of theirs. We did an estimate a month and a half ago for someone that live four doors down. They have now called and are wanting to us to put the fence in right away. The home owners of the incident are wanting a pool fence now as well. It is a shame that someone has to die for people to realize the importance of a safety fence for swimming pools.

My Doggy Door is a Danger

We have a doggy door for our Jack Russell, but the problem is our children can also pass through the doggy door as well. Thank goodness for our Pool Safety Fence.

I ran to answer the phone the other day and my three year old crawled through the doggy door and was sitting next to the pool.

Had we not had the pool safety fence, it would have certainly been a tragedy.

Child Drowning Prevention - Real Life Story

At Pool Guard, we are on the business of putting up pool safety fences and the more we stress to our customers how important it is to be safe the less they want to spend.

A couple of weeks ago we got a phone call to do an estimate at a house in Plantation, Florida. We did the estimate and the homeowner told us that an child had drowned and he/she was in coma. We installed their pool fence and a few days later we got another phone call to do an estimate at the same neighborhood. We went there, the homeowners were away at the hospital, we only communicated with them by phone, and then we found out that their son was at the hospital.

We put 2 and 2 together, and sure enough they were the parents of the child that near drown.

We later found out that that they HAD the pool fence but never put up (paid somebody to install). We had them scheduled to install the fence today, my installer gets there this morning and we found out that the child had died.

As a mother my heart is broken, I can not explain the pain and my sympathy to this family enough; but I am also angry because this situation could have been prevented.

Do you want to know what is even worse? We did an estimate for this child’s uncle best friend and we found out that a few years ago the uncle lost a child (also drowned in the pool) and now this one dies. This is the second death in this family due to drowning and even after the child drowned and while in coma, the parents were shopping for the best price on the pool fence installation.

This is crazy.

The Young Family

Why Buying A Pool Fence is Smart - Real Life Story

The other day I was talking to a customer about a fence, and we went outside to measure it. Myself, the mother, and her 3 year old daughter were outside by the pool. As we were looking at the brochure (maybe a minute or so ) we heard a splash. Her daughter had walked away from her side around the pool and fell in. I rushed around the pool to reach down and grab her daughter's arm as she was slowly sinking back first in the pool. I was able to pull her out and she was scared, but fine. This was the first time I had experienced anything like this, but it showed me how quick a possible tragedy can happen. After seeing this, it made me feel even more proud of the service we offer our customers. On a lighter note, about twenty minutes later her husband came home. He walked out and asked what we were doing. She quickly replied, “buying a pool safety fence!”

Chuck Bryan
Pool Guard of the Panhandle

Vero Beach Florida Pool Drowning

We had a drowning in Vero Beach just a couple of weeks ago. A two year old boy scurried away from the sight of his adult supervision for just a few seconds and…This tragic incident happened in a very well to do neighborhood near the beach. Accidents can and do happen to ANYONE and EVERYONE. This is one ‘accident’ that we have a choice in preventing. We got a few extra calls for safety product estimates after citizens read the news in the paper, but it was too late to help prevent that tragedy in this family’s life.

I personally know a few families who have lost children to drownings and it NEVER ends well. It’s a devastating occurance for everyone involved right down to the paramedics who attempt to revive the child. One of my good friends was a medic on this site. He is a true professional and yet he was absolutely moved by this scene. Here he is, a 250 lb. giant of a man, a father of four and a top notch paramedic, and he helpless in his attempts to help this little boy or his family. He said the grandmother was simply wilted and crushed by the entire ordeal.

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir, but in a nutshell, the more layers of protection, the better. A safety fence or net would have almost certainly given the adult in charge the necessary seconds or minute to find this young boy before he ever even got to the water. It would have changed these people’s lives forever. What’s that worth?

It makes my skin crawl for some to suggest that these tragic incidents are a “way to market safety products”. I don’t ever want to take someone’s emotions and play games with them. It also makes me very sad, angry and a host of other feelings, when a simple and relatively inexpensive device like a pool fence is seen by some as an eyesore, inconvenience or waste of money at the expense of a little boy’s or girl’s life. I just can’t justify being silent about this issue. It’s a mission and I’m hoping many more people will be added to the cause before I have to read or hear about another child drowning.

Sincerely,
Joel Molinari
Pool Guard of the Treasure Coast