May is Water Safety Month. This month the City of Hazelwood Parks and Recreation Department is bringing you information on the different aspects on how we keep our pools safe for all patrons. The topic for this week is swim lessons.
Swim lessons are a vital part in making sure everyone, not just children, is safe in and around water. Learning how to swim and swimming well are two very different things. According to Sports Health, 40-91% of swimming injuries occur in the shoulders. This is mainly attributed to poor swimming technique. Small technique errors in swimming types like butterfly or freestyle can lead to serious injuries.
Between 2005 and 2014, there was an average of 3,536 fatal drownings each year in the United States. One in four people who died were under the age of 14, and 80% of them were male. According to the CDC, more children ages 1 - 4 die from drowning than any other cause, except for birth defects. Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury or death, after motor vehicle crashes, in children ages 1 - 14. These statistics make us at White Birch Bay Aquatic Center very aware of how dangerous swimming and be, and why the need for proper swimming lessons must be available.
White Birch Bay offers swim lessons and other classes for all ages. The swim teacher works to tailor the lessons as needed to each individual child, making the classes more enjoyable for all students. During these classes, swimmers will be taught different skills that can be built on top of others to become better and stronger swimmers. Our swim classes use many different types of equipment including kick boards, barbells, and more in order to help the students feel more comfortable.
Come visit us on June 23rd for the World's Largest Swim Lesson and see just what our program can do to help you and your children learn how to swim! More information on the World's Largest Swim Lesson and other classes available can be found in our Parks & Recreation Activity Guide.