My heart goes out to these two families but I also agree with the above poster. If you don’t know how to swim, please stay away from bodies of water.

Excuse me what do you mean “luxury of the elite”? Many of us lower income people have made sure their kids know how swim.
I am scared of deep water and I know how to swim because of that fear. Both my kids were in the YMCA swim classes by the time they were 5.
I hope and pray the families will be able to over come this awful accident.

I don’t think the author was saying that swimming is a “luxury of the elite” but that it has been viewed that way in the past but shouldn’t be.

Everyone should be sure their children learn how to swim early in childhood. It’s about survival.

I am very disturbed by this tragedy for both families…I recently lost my brother on June 26, 2010 in the Bogue Chitto River in Bougulusa, La (He was a hard-working 32 year old married man with 6 kids)…However, unlike the six youth that drowned in the waters, my brother was a very good swimmer and drowned…We as African Americans are not exposed to those types of waters. Those rivers are very dangerous…the footage of the waters are very wide in range(in some parts of those rivers, it can drop off 22 ft.)
…and also, currents under the water are very crucial. The policies and laws need to changed concerning our lakes and rivers…there needs be more awareness about this matter. We should wear life-jackets on those waters, even if you are a life-guard; because, the fact-of-the-matter is, you never know where the dips are in the water, unless you are on those waters everyday. It’s not just about swimming lessons, it’s about safety procedures and awareness. We need to make a difference in our policy…How many more lives do we plan to lose?

If you couldn’t imagine standing on shore watching your family die, why take your family to a place with such a danger nearby?

As far as the amount of families not receiving free or reduced YMCA memberships, they can get out of the house and go get them. They’re there, they’re available, no one will knock on the door and tell them to come on over and swim.

At some point, people need to accept responsibility for themselves.

I did not say the program is free to anyone and everyone. The program is free or reduced to those with a low income. Read that however you want.

The fact is, these people took their families to a place where they weren’t safe. You can put all the laws and policies in place that you want, they won’t save anyone. People always yell “there oughta’ be a law!”. We have many laws for many things that aren’t followed already. Pass a law against swimming in rivers without life jackets and people will still do it. What punishment will you enforce? Arrest them when they’re dead?

This is a powerful lesson for ALL parents!

Drowning is a leading cause of accidental death of children in this country. Like a silent and invisible shark, it does not care what ethnicity it’s victim is, nor their sex, age, and even swimming ability.

Learning to swim and having supervision present is no guarantee that the risk of drowning is removed. In fact in about 90% of drownings involving children, supervision was present, and many drowning victims knew how to swim (CDC).

Parents and caregivers must be supervising their children at all times. Even so, additional layers of protection including drowning detection technologies must also be used wherever possible to dramatically reduce, if not eradicate, the risk of preventable and needless drowning. Otherwise this terrible silent epidemic needlessly killing our children and friends will continue on and on.

I have noticed that the non-swimmers tend to drown quite a lot more than those who can swim. Why are these little milk duds wading in water? Why can’t they swim? ANSWER: parent are way to stupid. They can barely figure out how to reproduce. fuk the nigs!

I’ll admit, I’m very nervous around water, and my kids know it. My daughter knows how to swim, and I plan on learning how to swim with my son this fall. I find it interesting that many kids think they can swim.

In our community (Texas Panhandle) swim lessons are no longer publicized at all, leaving all youth at risk. I think it boils down to advertising the need more so than the price. Many families (black, Hispanic, white, etc) might provide their children with lessons if they just realized how important it is. Our community used to have a program with the city pools to teach swimming, but I haven’t seen that since my kids were little (many years). They used to pick kids up in a bus at each grade school and take them for lessons at the beginning of the summer. Black parents need to become aware, too, that blacks typically have a higher, denser amount of body muscle which makes it harder for them to swim. This is evident in the disproportionately high number of black atheletes you see. Body fat makes you more bouyant, hence we have a higher number of white athletes in swimming competition. As with most situations, education is the answer. Let’s get these programs going again. It makes life safer for youth of every color.