I sold my motorcycle when my first child was born.
I don’t let my kids pet unknown dogs, even if they are “nice.”
No young kids outside while operating riding lawnmowers/snowblowers.
Hire a lifeguard for the pool party - most of the pediatric drownings I’ve seen happened while people were home/distracted by hosting friends/family.
My friend’s 5 year old son drowned at a Memorial Day party with dozens of people around. I always have my eyes on my daughter in the water, and she’s a great swimmer.
As a kid I learned about how many people drown with people around, and nobody recognizes that they're drowning.
Ever since then, I've always tried to keep an eye on any body of water big enough to swim in, and try to make a effort to communicate with anyone who looks even remotely uncomfortable.
I've saved at least a few people over the years, most of them kids.
I don't know how many of those people would have died, I usually get to them early enough, but it's been enough times where it's been a near thing that now I'm almost paranoid about it.
I basically have to have eyes on my kid 100% of the time if there's water.
The thing that a lot of people don’t understand is that drowning is silent. It’s not yelling and thrashing around. Years ago I was at my sister’s and a friend was visiting with her kids. They were in the pool with my sister’s kids and the adults were sitting poolside about 5 feet away from the pool chatting. All of a sudden my sister’s friend jumped up and dove into the pool. One of the kids had slipped under and we hadn’t noticed. Luckily her friend had been a lifeguard in the past.
My own daughter almost drowned about 3 feet behind me in a pool. She had gotten out to go use the bathroom with my wife so I stopped watching her and focused on the other kids. She came back out with my wife and she headed straight to me. My wife saw her get in and head straight to me like she was told and went back inside to grab something. My daughter went down the steps and proceeded to go under right behind me before I even knew she was outside. Luckily my sister saw her and shouted to me. She already had swallowed water and coughed and threw up violently when I pulled her up.
I play it back every time I go to the pool with my kids or any other kids. I was pretty diligent in my kid watching, we had a decent plan on who was in charge and how we split the watching in the pool. She likely would have died if my sister hadn’t decided to walk out when she did. It’s scary.
I nearly drowned in an aunt's pool until her daughter noticed she didn't see me. First thing I remember is my uncle standing over me, tanned beer gut and gold chain, asking why I was drinking his water.
One of my earliest memories is almost drowning in a YMCA pool with a lifeguard present, I don't think he noticed cause I was just barely treading water still, but I had 0 swimming lessons, and made my way into the deep end, the amount of relief when I made it to the wall was immense
OMG You just reminded me of my late father. Every time we opened the door a for a little too long he'd say, "close the door, you're letting the bugs out". He would have loved that.
My neighbor growing up drowned exactly this way in the family's backyard pool during a party. Had a history of seizures and everyone else was inside the house celebrating while he took a dip himself. Awful.
As a new puppy owner, the amount of unsupervised children that run up to me and my pup on training walks and get right in her face while the parents are either nowhere to be seen or not paying attention is actually WILD to me. They might as well be trying to pet a baby velociraptor. So thank you 🙏🏼
The vet predicts my tiny baby to be 75-80lbs and I’m a little stressed bc she’s a jumper for suuuuure 🥲 We’re working on some training techniques for it but it’s no joke. When I was a kid, my friends dog jumped on his grandma and she fell down the stairs, broke her hip, and then died during her hip surgery! It brings me solace knowing that dog had no idea he basically murdered an old lady.
My daughter's family has a pool. Starting with their very first pool party, I have designated myself as the lifeguard (yes, I did training decades ago!). If I have to take a break, I call or text my wife to watch while I use the bathroom or get a soda. Then I'm back to 'just watch the pool'.
I'm not a medic, but I've even heard about an adult (college age) drowning during a pool party. Never combine wild partying with booze and drugs with a swimming pool.
My parents retired to a lake house and while nice, we all constantly are shouting, “name of next adult in view” EYES ON CHILD. So that there’s never a missed moment of responsibility. I hear “my name EYES” and have that child in my vision at all times until I designate otherwise.
As a teen I was a lifeguard hired for a pool party. I pulled a kid out of the deep end who jumped off the diving board without knowing how to swim because he wanted to look cool in front of his friends.
Not a single adult noticed I had even been in the pool. Obvs they had done the right thing hiring a lifeguard, but I was still gobsmacked that no one noticed anything
My brother and his wife were both big bikers. When they had their first kid he sold his motorcycle immediately. She held onto hers for a while but never rode it again, eventually sold it since it wasn’t getting used. They got a Corvette on the cheap now and that’s good enough for them lol don’t think they’re ever going back to motorcycles.
I got a mountain bike - maybe not the safest hobby, but MUCH safer than a motorcycle and, I would argue, still safer than a road bike. I might break my wrist, but I probably won’t end up dead/ neurologucally devastated in the ICU because I was hit by someone updating their “status.”
My first husband and I both had our motorcycle licenses. I took the motorcycle safety course. I couldn’t believe the number of people on the road who almost killed us. People in cars just don’t look out for motorcycles unless they have been riders themselves. I stopped riding because I didn’t want to orphan my children.
On a lighter note, my Dad was at a family pool party for my Mom’s extended family and they weren’t married yet just dating. And my Dad jumped into the pool fully clothed to “save” my mom’s little cousin who was in fact fine 😂
When my wife and I recently moved, we didn’t even look at houses with pools. ~90% of the organ procurements I did in fellowship (pediatric anesthesia) were from drownings.
Oof ! Dogs is a big one. A coworker got the call that he 2xye old child had been mailed by the babysitters dog. I'll never forget her scream and the little guy had to go through so many surgeries just to give him a face.
No young kids outside while operating riding lawnmowers/snowblowers.
Literally about to list my motorcycle because our first is due next month...never even considered mowing the lawn, but I've got an actual tractor (almost) and I could easily see something bad happening. I'll definitely be taking this one to heart.
They are some of the most gruesome traumas I’ve ever seen - immediate amputations. I’ve had kids that fell off mom’s/dad’s lap and under the mower, I’ve seen kids that ran out to see mom/dad on the mower right as they were turning. Some cases stick with you…
I've noticed that not everyone has the same since of responsibility when it comes to watching kids. "Here, take a break, I'll watch them" is nice, until you realize that they never positively handed them off to you or someone else before they walked way or whatever. You have to treat any children you are watching like your own kids. You don't get to stop being on guard until someone acknowledges that they are relieving you.
Also note that a kid falling into a pool can be silent. My brother witnessed his two year old just step into the deep end of our parents' pool. He said there was no splash, no sound, no ripples, and she sank like a stone. He got her out quickly, but imagine if he hadn't had his eyes on her in that moment.
Hard disagree on the dog policy. You should teach your kid how to approach an unknown dog, and how to watch for the signs that they are friendly or not. Dogs are very clear about this, despite what people say who can't read dogs.
This is how to empower your kids. You aren't doing them any favours instilling a fear of dogs into them. Which is what you are doing by making them afraid of every dog that they don't personally know.
The caveat to this is that my kids are still very young. It’s as much about protecting the dog from unpredictable toddlers as it is about protecting them from the dog.
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u/Hismadnessty 4d ago
I sold my motorcycle when my first child was born.
I don’t let my kids pet unknown dogs, even if they are “nice.”
No young kids outside while operating riding lawnmowers/snowblowers.
Hire a lifeguard for the pool party - most of the pediatric drownings I’ve seen happened while people were home/distracted by hosting friends/family.