MONTREAL - A watery tragedy over the weekend has experts warning of the very real dangers of children drowning.
In Pierrefonds on Sunday, a child of four escaped the attentions of a baby-sitter who was also watching a two-year old. The boy wandered off to a neighbour's pool and quickly drowned.
And in a separate incident in Laval on the weekend, a three-year-old narrowly avoided drowning when scooped up from the bottom of a pool. That child might have suffered brain damage from the event.
Such incidents have experts offering specific advice on proper safety protocol.
"You have to keep direct eye contact with your kids," says Raynald Hawkins of the Lifesaving Society. "Bring your cordless phone, your lemonade and if you have to leave the pool, tell them ‘all kids out, we'll come back in 15 minutes.'"
Hawkins also told CTV Montreal that adult should never let a child be more than an arm's length away. He noted that children have been known to drown silently in as little as 10 seconds.
Provincial rules dictate that new pools must be surrounded by a fence around the yard and another fence around the pool's perimeter.
