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Now, Before Summer: Life Lesson Children Must Learn—To Swim, But How Many Do?
Swimming isn’t simply good exercise or fun with family and friends; it can be the one thing that saves a child’s life.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that ten people die every day in the U.S. from unintentional drowning, including 1 in 5 children 14 or younger. Drowning is the second most common cause of unintentional injury death for children and the fifth most common cause of unintentional injury death for people of all ages. For every child who drowns and dies, five others go to the emergency room with submersion injuries that do not result in death.
But drowning isn’t limited to small children or deaths in the bathtub. Teenagers may be too sure of their swimming skills and are more likely to swim while drunk, which greatly increases their risk. Children of color, especially African American teens, are especially at risk.
Black kids between the ages of 5 and 14 are 2.6 times more likely to die than white kids of the same age. This is because black families have not had much experience with public pools and other water activities over the years because they have been shut out of them.
Overall, the number of drowning deaths has gone down, but there are still differences between racial and ethnic groups. To help close…
