Comments on: Child safety, D.C. style

By: MHoc

MHoc — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:31:07 +0000

Knowing that floaties were against the rules I brought a certified life jacket, I was told that it too was against the rules.

The story about this dad floaties reaffirms what I already knew. One would think that the real solution is to ban parents that don’t watch their kids, floaties or not.

By: Bill Poser

Bill Poser — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:21:23 +0000

I think there may be another issue here. A poorly designed flotation device can keep the wearer on the surface but in a dangerous position, face down in the water. The regulation may be aimed at these. Of course, this isn’t relevant if her father is just going to hold her in the water and she isn’t going to swim or go into deep water.

By: E-Bell

E-Bell — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:03:19 +0000

George, I know where you’re coming from. In my youth, I was a lifeguard and I taught swim lessons at a local pool. “Water wings” or other “floaties” are indeed dangerous to children because they have been known to come off of the children without warning.

In this case, however, it sounds like the “floaties” are sewn into the swim suit, so there’s little danger of that. In addition, the scenario you described would be equally true of “Coast Guard approved” flotation devices, which seemed to be the only criteria that mattered to the lifeguards in the article.

By: Deoxy

Deoxy — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:16:45 +0000

“I can speed because I have an airbag.”

Therefore, airbags should be banned.

Same logic, George.

By: George

George — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:28:50 +0000

Hmm. Love the site, but I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree on this one (I’m a former pool manager). Kids in floaties always scared me, because they ended up farther out than they could swim, and too many parents said “oh, junior has a floatie so I can just lay here and read my book without bothering to watch him.” Floaties come off. Kids get out of suits. Strange stuff happens at a pool.

For me it wasn’t about the lawsuits, it was about imagining a little kid in a pool with 200 other people and the lifeguard missing it when he went under.