Horror drowning toll prompts kids’ swimming lessons initiative in bid to save lives

Pennie O'Connor with her daughters, from left, Sammi, 5, and Cassie, 7. Cassie's swimming lessons saved her from harm when she fell into a pool in Rarotonga in 2018. Photo / Simon Watts / www.bwmedia.co.nz

It would become, happily, a “non-event” when 3-year-old Cassie O’Connor tumbled into the pool while holidaying in Rarotonga with her family.

But if not for swimming lessons that began when the Manukau girl was 6 months old, the outcome could have been very different, mum Pennie O’Connor says, on the eve of a campaign to get more kids in swimming lessons after the worst year for drownings in a decade.

Tomorrow, Swim Coaches and Teachers New Zealand and Water Safety NZ launch SWIMSAFER Week, aimed at educating more families about water safety, and the importance of kids learning to swim as early as possible.

The initiative comes as Water Safety NZ says there have been 74 preventable drownings in 2022. At the same time last year there were 66, and during the entirety of 2021 there were 90.

A report commissioned as part of the initiative showed 48 per cent of children aren’t having lessons to master the life skill described by Water Safety NZ chief executive Daniel Gerrard as the “best prevention method” against drowning.

Two-thirds of parents aren’t confident their kids have the skills to help themselves in a water emergency, and more than one-in-five parents have no intention of enrolling their child in a swim school programme.

O’Connor spoke about her family’s experience to support the initiative, which also includes a Swim It Forward campaign to reduce financial barriers to swimming lessons.

From left, Rob Hewitt, Cassie O'Connor, Dame Sophie Pascoe and Sammi O'Connor are all doing their bit to encourage parents to enrol their kids in swimming lessons. Photo / Simon Watts / www.bwmedia.co.nz

She and husband Rhys had taken their two daughters, then aged 1 and 3, to Rarotonga for a family wedding when Cassie fell while following her older cousin around the pool at the bach they were staying in.

“My husband ran to get her but by the time he got there she’d resurfaced, turned on her back and was floating trying to reach the edge.

“She was just comfortable being in the water, and even being upside down in the water. It’s funny, because I’m talking about a non-event, but it could’ve been an event.”

Thinking about what could have been made her shudder, O’Connor said.

Cassie’s swim lessons - which began with water confidence and progressed to include breath control, turning onto her back and floating, kicking and even climbing out of the side of a pool - potentially saved the family from a trip to hospital, and her daughter from trauma which may have left her afraid of water.

“There were adults there, so she was never going to drown. But what could’ve happened is she could’ve [inhaled and] got that water on the lungs and, even if they’re breathing, they have to be observed in hospital.”

A similar experience put a friend’s child in hospital, and then fearing water for a year afterwards, O’Connor said.

That, and our horrific drowning toll, prompted her to talk about the family’s experience, O’Connor said.

“Every time I see a story about a child drowning, it just breaks my heart. When I was growing up we did swimming at school, and it just doesn’t happen anymore, so unfortunately parents have to make that effort to … take their children to swimming lessons.

“It’s one of the most important things - living in New Zealand we all spend our summers at the beach, at lakes or in rivers - that they all are confident and know how to be safe around and in water.”

Gerrard says the sooner we get kids, especially boys, confident and safe in the water the more lives we will save.

“We are on the worst trajectory for drownings this country has ever seen ... and we haven’t even hit summer yet.”

The report’s survey of 515 parents also showed almost four in 10 parents had either had a family member, or had themselves, had a bad experience with water, with the same number describing their own swimming skills as “basic or deficient”.

However, 52 per cent also believed swimming lessons were too expensive, prompting the Swim It Forward initiative where donors can contribute towards lessons for families unable to afford them.

That needed to change for the new generation, said 11-time Paralympic gold medallist Dame Sophie Pascoe, a SWIMSAFER Week ambassador alongside former Navy diver Rob Hewitt, who survived three days lost at sea after being caught in a rip while diving.

“It’s never too early to start. It needs to become a non-negotiable in every home across New Zealand.”

• To find your closest participating swim school and donate to the Swim It Forward initiative, go to www.SWIMSAFER.org.nz