Caitlin Whyte (Host): Welcome to BayCare HealthChat. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte. And today we want to discuss water safety with you. Our expert this episode is Camille Yodzis, a wellness and safety educator with BayCare Kids Wellness and Safety Center. Thank you for joining us, Camille. So happy to have you on the show.

Well, I'd love to go through water safety for all different age levels today because it's always important to consider from infants to even older teens, and yes, adults. So what are your big safety tips and rules for infants and toddlers at first, whether it's taking a bath, hitting the pool, or heading to a beach?

Camille Yodzis: So it's always going to be staying within arm's reach when you're near the child or anywhere near the water. So that could be bathtubs, sinks, toilets, pools, spas, anywhere where there's standing water. It's going to be important that you're able to reach them if there was ever a situation or quickly grab them away.

You want to protect them by emptying any standing water. So especially here in Florida, we have so much rain, so emptying those buckets, wading pools, and absolutely bathtubs, and making sure that you keep children away from dog water bowls and out of that access. So keeping them safe when they're in or around swimming pools, it's going to be extremely important to install the latches and/or door locks in the area. So we want to have that pool fence that's going to be four feet tall that you latch every single time that you either are near it or you come out of the pool just to help add an extra layer to protect that child and that infant. But making sure that you have door alarms and always having eyes on those kids is also going to be extremely helpful as well.

So assigning water watchers is going to be something that can help keep not only infants safe, but also kids and teenagers. And that water watcher, what they're going to do is they're going to take over that responsibility of being a lifeguard for anywhere from about 10 to 15 minutes. So that water watcher, it means they're not talking, they're not texting, they're not eating, they're not drinking.

They're just solely counting the heads of the kiddos that are in the pool and there's not going to be any distractions. After those 10 to 15 minutes are up, they can go back to enjoying the party. They're just going to hand that water watcher whistle and/or that responsibility off to another adult and then that other adult will go ahead and they'll take over watching the pool so everyone gets to enjoy the party while keeping everyone nice and safe.

Host: I love that kind of sharing the responsibility. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much. Now, let's fast forward a few years. What about water safety for our younger kiddos and those preteens? What should we keep in mind then?

Camille Yodzis: Definitely having that supervision and always watching. Buddy safety is going to be one of the biggest things that you can do, so you always want to have a swimming buddy. Personally, I always go swimming with my twin brother, so wherever I go, my twin's going to follow me and vice versa, so if there ever is an issue, your buddy can go and get help, whether it's with that adult or that lifeguard, that's going to go ahead and help make sure that everyone's going to stay nice and safe and they're going to be protected.

Some other things that you can do is also going to be to make sure that you enter feet first into the water. Typically, when kids get older and when they're close to 10 or older than that, they like to do flips, but entering feet first into that water is going to be something that's super important since our head is the most important part of our body. We need to protect that at all costs, so entering feet first is always going to be the safest, but we also need to ensure that the water will be safe to enter.

So a lot of times teenagers, they go throughout the water and they go to lakes, oceans. And they don't typically look at what's in the water before they jump in. So we want to make sure that people are looking out for rocks. They're looking out for wildlife, uneven surfaces. They want to make sure stingrays aren't going to be there. So do a little stingray shuffle, make sure that there's no alligators or manatees that you might end up on, but just making sure that you're aware of your surroundings.

And also following those rules for if you are at a pool, making sure that you're always walking and making sure that you're listening to those lifeguards, and if there's thunder, you're going to get out of that water since it's not safe for you to be in there. Being the lightning capital of the world, we have lightning that happens even when it's super sunny outside, so just making sure that you're aware and you know what those rules are.

Host: Well, thank you for that. You know, you mentioned our preteens starting to do those flips into the water. Well, we have to talk about our teenagers now and that's when things probably start to get really rowdy in the pools. What should we consider then?

Camille Yodzis: So we should know, always entering feet first into the water. Their frontal lobe isn't completely developed at this point in time yet, so teenagers, they think doing flips or else jumping off of rocks to go into the ocean or the lake is always going to be the smartest choice. But they don't have that decision making completely built in yet.

They tend to take greater risks and a lot of times they are unsupervised. Sometimes they go swimming alone. So just making sure that you always have a buddy and access to a telephone is something that can be really helpful. Also, making sure that if you are a teenager, you have CPR training, just in case you are in a situation, you know how to save your buddy's life and or provide any type of emergency medicine or lifesaving skills that might need to be used in that instance.

Host: That CPR training is so, so important. Can you tell us how and why we take advantage of those classes around us?

Camille Yodzis: Yeah, so absolutely. CPR is one of the most important things that we can learn. We can use CPR on infants, children, and adults, and we never know when we're going to be in a situation where that CPR has to be used. CPR is cardiopulmonary resuscitation. So cardio meaning heart, pulmonary meaning lungs, and resuscitation meaning to revive.

And it's important because we might need to rescue people that aren't in a pool. They might just be lying potentially on the pool deck or at the beach or a number of different places, but we want to know how to do CPR so we can help those around us. There's no rhyme or reason if all of a sudden somebody collapses due to cardiac arrest; but if we have that training, we can become the heartbeat for that victim and help revive them until 911 and the professionals are able to take over.

So it's something that luckily I get to train thousands of adults every single year in how to do CPR and first aid; but it's a skill that everybody needs to learn. High schoolers are learning it. It's now a graduation requirement, which is pretty awesome. But I think every family needs to learn CPR and how to rescue someone because you never know who it's going to be.

Host: That is really cool about the high school requirement. I did not know that. Thank you for sharing.

Camille Yodzis: Yeah, absolutely.

Host: Now, I'd love to also take a moment to consider our children with disabilities. When they're at the pool or the beach or like you mentioned, just around water in general, what should we do to keep them safe as well?

Camille Yodzis: So it's going to be super important that we go ahead and get those kiddos swimming lessons. Swimming lessons is going to be the most important thing for any kid, but especially kids who might be autistic or have developmental delays. So typically they like to wander off alone. So making sure that we get them those swimming lessons, so they learn how to float and how to save their life if they were to make it into any type of water is going to be extremely helpful, but also making sure that we securely close any gates and doors and we have a supervision plan that's intact for those kiddos with special needs.

So, swimming lessons with clothing and shoes on is going to be important for those children so that they understand how to float and how much harder it'll be to swim with that clothing on and they're used to it if they ever were to make it into the water with maybe a coat on or those running shoes on.

So we want to understand those risks and those steps to prevent that drowning injury, and swimming lessons is going to be the most important thing to keep those kids nice and safe.

Host: Wonderful. And let's focus on swim lessons for a second. I taught swim lessons like all through high school and college and through my 20s, honestly, as a lifeguard. And I'd love to talk about swim lessons just broadly. Why is it so important for really any kid anywhere to have?

Camille Yodzis: So swimming lessons, it's important because they don't just teach you how to swim, how to do different strokes like butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, or free. They also teach you the first thing is how to float. So when kids make it into the water, floating keeps you safe. It helps you catch your breath, it helps allow you to gather yourself until you have that energy to start swimming again.

It helps children of all ages feel comfortable on the water, especially being a peninsula, we have so much water everywhere, and it's so rainy all the time that we need to know how to rescue ourselves if we ever were in that situation. They have mommy and daddy and me classes, and it goes all the way up to adults too.

So it's not just meant for children, it's also meant for those adults as well. Living on that peninsula, it's important everybody knows how to swim and have those rescue skills for if they were in a situation; that they know how to relax, catch that breath until they're able to muster up that energy to swim to the edge of the pool or a safe spot.

Host: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Camille, I'd like to talk about drowning in general. We talked a lot today about heading to the pool, heading to the beach, maybe getting on a boat, all these places where we know we're going swimming. But I've heard before that children, especially our young ones, can drown in like an inch or two of water. Can you tell us about that?

Camille Yodzis: Yeah. So most drownings in kids under the age of four occur in home swimming pools and any standing body of water. So it just takes an inch or two for a child to drown, just enough water to cover their nose and mouth. And typically, it could be anything like a bathtub and or a toilet, where all of a sudden, maybe you turn around for a second, and that toddler, they have Barbie or G. I. Joe swimming in the toilet, not knowing what takes place in there. And they drop Barbie, and they try to grab that toy out, and because they're so top heavy, they fall completely into that toilet and can't push themselves out. And it just takes an inch or two. It could be mop buckets, aquariums, any type of sink, which is why it's so important that you empty out that standing water, make sure that everything's drained, close the lids to everything, and just lock those doors behind you to make sure that those kids stay safe since it only takes an inch or two of water.

Host: Well, wrapping up here, when you were heading out to a beach or a pool, you suggested designating a water watcher or a couple water watchers to kind of take shifts like we talked about earlier. Just remind us again why that's so important and what exactly that person is doing.

Camille Yodzis: So that water watcher, once you designate them, they are going to become the lifeguard for wherever you are, that beach, that lake, that pool, and they are going to ensure that every child stays safe. So a lot of people think that when a drowning occurs, it is how it is in the movies, where they're thrashing around, screaming for help. While in reality, it just takes a second. That victim can't scream for help. They're just struggling to keep their head above the water.

So by having a water watcher, they are focusing on every child that is in the water in front of them. So if all of a sudden they see this victim's trying to keep their head above water and they keep dunking down under, they can jump in or throw them something that floats to go ahead and rescue that child, to keep them from being an active drowner into all of a sudden an unresponsive victim at that point.

So making sure that you're always scanning that water, counting heads, counting bodies, and just paying attention to what's going on can not only prevent injuries such as doing backflips and maybe hitting the edge of the pool, but it can help prevent those drownings as well.

Host: Really some great tips here, Camille, whether we are intentionally heading out to a pool or to the beach or really just tips to keep in mind if there's standing water around.

That wraps up this episode of BayCare HealthChat. Head on over to our website at BayCare.org for more information, and to get connected with one of our providers. Please remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast and all of the other BayCare podcasts. For more health tips and updates, follow us on your social channels. If you found this podcast informative, please share it on your social media and be sure to check out all of the other interesting podcasts in our library. I'm Caitlin Whyte.