Pool Closures and Drownings
I became a surf lifesaver in the 80’s for the competition and to save lives. Grabbing someone’s hand as they went under on their final breath and pulling them onto my board never happened, in fact I can’t say I ever “saved a life” but what I learned is that paramedics save lives, lifeguards are in the business of PREVENTION through mitigation and education… much like engineers and planners.
I also learned that the key cause of drownings is people’s inability to swim!
So when successive governments closed school pools through their focus on cost savings, compliance, and risk mitigation I openly told people deaths would follow. So yesterday I downloaded the drowning data for NZ and whatever way you slice it (by age band, accident type etc) I am unable to prove that hypothesis (yet?) Somehow the way we report drowning tragedies, the education, the fantastic lifeguards, and private swim schools seem to be holding the death rate steady. However, there are indications of that changing in recent years.
My point is, as specialists in our field we know stupid when we see it but sometimes the data does not support our hypothesis so it can be many many years before the experts are proven correct.
Public Sector Governance, Financial and Asset Management Specialist
8 个月In a world that demands decisions are based on evidence, and evidence is based on data, there can be no prevention. For when things change, as they always will, there is not yet any data available. That's why we have experts, people who think things through, know the people involved and how they react and spot changes in behaviour. It's far too late when the drowning deaths show up in statistics. Frequently the initial decision, e.g. to build a pool, was done for a variety of reasons. Data isn't kept on all of them. But people notice things. Ask them!