Hillsborough agencies work together to reduce child drowning deaths
Philip Morgann – Wednesday, May 22, 2024
May is National Water Safety Month, but it’s important for parents to keep this in mind every day of every month: it can take less than a minute for a child to drown.
“I don’t think people really realize that drowning actually is silent,’’ says Sharon Finotti, director of aquatics at the Brandon-based nonprofit High 5, Inc. “You see it in the movies that people look like they’re splashing around. That’s not how people drown. Actually, they’re still and they just go under the water and you don’t know that they’re gone.”
Drowning is the number one cause of death of children between ages 1 and 4, according to the National Drowning Prevention Alliance. To help prevent tragedies, High 5’s swimming instructors teach free water safety lessons for any child in Hillsborough County between ages 3 and 18, no matter their family’s income. Over eight sessions, they learn basic skills in lessons that emphasize teaching children how to save themselves if they get in trouble in the water.
Called Water Warriors, the program is funded by the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, the government agency that provides funding to nonprofit organizations and programs that help improve the lives of children and families in Hillsborough. Children’s Board Executive Director Rebecca Bacon says the agency has always stressed the need to keep children safe in and around water.
“Unfortunately, according to the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner, there were nine child deaths due to drowning in 2023,” Bacon says. “I also saw in Florida there were 97 child drowning deaths in 2023.’’
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