Pool Safety Article from CCPOM Member

The following is from a CCPOM member who had a frightening experience with his young twins who climbed their way into a neighbors garden. He hopes it will prevent any future accidents happening:

"I would like to take this opportunity to share a terrifying experience I had last week, involving my 2-year old twins and our neighbor’s pool.

We live in a single family home with a large yard. We have no pool, and the whole yard is surrounded by a solid six foot wooden fence and garden gates that are locked at all times. I also try to anticipate dangers so during the summer, I secured wood planks to the fence along the bottom border where it seemed like the kids might try to crawl under. I never thought much about our neighbor’s pool because of the precautions I had taken.

One morning I let them out as usual but then I noticed shortly after that it was too quiet. I went outside but could not find either our little boy or our little girl. Then, I heard their giggles coming from the other side of the fence. I peaked over the fence to find them crouching on the very edge of our neighbor’s pool splashing their hands in the water. I do not know how long they had been sitting there and there was no obvious hole or gap in the fence where they might have crawled through. As I was trying to understand how this could have happened, I jumped over the fence, grabbed them and saved them. A minute later and I may have lost them.

It turns out that two small panels of the fence had collapsed into our neighbor's yard leaving a gap large enough for our twins to pass through. Neither our neighbors nor I knew about this.

Since pools are so common in our neighborhood and pose such a great harm to our children, I hope my experience may keep parents and owners of swimming pools alert--even during the winter months when some people don't pay much attention to swimming pools. I hope it may prevent future accidents from happening. Matthias Mahnke"