Thursday, 6 February 2014

Drowning needs a voice and money

It’s either 6 years 4 months 3 days, 76 months 3 days, 331 weeks 1 days or 2318 days whichever calculation you look at it that’s how long our daughter Hannah had been dead for.  Yes I said Dead, because she is. Lost to a family and a world that was better for having her in it and very much alive as opposed to not.  Lost because she drowned in a non-compliant pool built by a builder who didn’t care and cut corners, lost to a system that allowed us to buy our house and  yet people lied to cover themselves and I, her mother the public scapegoat of blame.  

Our lives changed forever on that fateful day.  The day when for just a few seconds turned into 2 mins and 23 secs since her phone call to her father that I was dragging my daughter’s dead body out of our pool and screaming on the phone for 000 help whilst doing CPR.  Only those momentary seconds before hand she was laughing, talking and telling her father that she loved him and would see him later.  ‘Later’ she said.  Hannah never said Later but she did. My only crime was to change her brothers nappy.  A parental function, yet many in the public view have called me negligent.  Hannah was still inside our house on the verandah she wasnt out the back like most pools are.   A Queenslander house with a verandah and the pool built off that.  The decking was illegally built yet no one told us.  Not council and not a private building and pest inspector.  Had we of been told we would never have put her at risk.

Since that time the advocacy and anger has dwelled, 6 years 4 months and 3 days worth of frustration, anger and tears and a torn up family.   Whist we may have achieved some answers for Hannah’s death and changed QLD Pool laws and made a difference I don’t believe that a lot truly has been achieved Nationally because in truth no one cares or listens.  

Drowning is ranked the 8^th in the Top Ten Killers of Australians.   Yet Cancers, Road Accidents and Heart Disease get more attention and funding than drowning.   WHY?    Where does the money go for drowning and its prevention?

There are famous advocates for Adoptions such as Hugh Jackman and Deborah Lee Furness, Lisa Curry recently jumped on board the Alcohol Fuelled violence campaign and even received time with the Premier,  the list goes on for those famous in sport, music and acting and yet where is that one person or the many that is required globally for drowning?    Famous Actors have suffered the horrific scares and losses of drowning.  Asher, Hunter Tylo and apparently Anne Hathaway was in a situation where she ‘could’ have drowned.  Natalie Wood the famous Hollywood Actress drowned off a boat and Australia’s Prime Minister is said to have drowned also.   Yet where is the attention to raise awareness to drowning prevention? Who is raising awareness?  Who is making a difference?
 

These are all valid questions and it’s serious.   Family Foundations are making some dent in the seriousness of drownings but its nowhere near enough and we must do better.

Right now in Australia, Boys and Men are at risk of drowning, pool safety awareness is critical because legislation is poorly enforced by governments and YES they are responsible for this. Pool owners need to be responsible for maintaining their fences and never propping open gates and Farm safety is crucial as we see more young children drowning in dams whilst playing unsupervised or have escaped the house doors or windows.   Boating accidents are up because people, mainly men won’t wear life jackets. 

Pool Legislation was introduced in 1991 and whilst the rates of deaths dropped dramatically over the next four years since the inception, the governments ceased funding awareness campaigns which meant not many pool owners maintained their pools and councils didn’t appear to check them for compliance. What was the point of legislation again?   Oh that’s right to save lives.    

Many amendments to legislation for pool safety were made over those 20 years and despite numerous coronial inquests, all the recommendations were ignored and never actioned.  Now those 20 years later drownings are up and people are still not educated on the risks.  Drowning can’t happen to me my children can swim many tell us.  Sadly more swimmers drown than not so swimming isn’t working.  Stopping drownings and the access to water is a priority because really who wants to take a simple chance that the $140 a term swimming lesson for little John will work if he accidently walks through a propped open pool gates, or climbs a chair and unlocks the gate or is let by another person who ‘forgets’ he is there?   Who wants to take that chance?   I certainly didn’t want to take it but we did.  Hannah’s lessons were our back up to our supervision our fence and yet it didn’t save her, nor did the water temperature either.  Hannah had a major heart attack when she hit the cold water, something either of us weren’t prepared for.  I’m fortunate I didn’t have to dive into the water head first or I could have been shocked too.  Imagine that scenario?  I just can’t.    

Farm safety is a top priority as we see many ‘city folk’ making country tree changes for a life style that I truly adored as a child, living on acreage or a farm with animals and the like and of course, the death trapped dam.   New environments are risky.  Kids explore and yet parents are unaware that the wonderful ducks on the dam will or could pose a risk within the first six months. 

Water safety was crucial when we were kids, nothing ‘water’ was ever fenced and we all looked out for each other as kids and friends.  Dams cannot be fenced on farms.  Cows, horses, sheep etc need access to water for obvious reasons.  The house and confines of the farm yard were fenced and we knew the rules.  It’s time that people realise that risks are everywhere and we need to adopt safety as prevention. Back then our door handles were so high we all needed help to open doors, now a days the door handles are at waist height and two year olds are escape artists better than Houdini.

Driveway run overs, blind cords, poisons, burns, falling out of bed, televisions falling on top of children and drownings are the highest causes of hospitalisations in Australia for children.  WHY?  All of these are preventable with safety and supervision.   Yet they still happen.  WHY? 

It is time that Australia was serious about preventing the preventable deaths. 

It is time that charges were made to protect our most vulnerable and YES I expected to be charged for the death of my daughter and YES I was investigated for over six weeks and YES Ive been publically accused of killing Hannah, and YES Ive taken the responsibility and said “she died on my watch and it was my  job to protect her”. 

Sadly we see so many others not take safety seriously.  Propped open pool gates this summer alone have contributed to over 100 immersions nationally and I count six deaths.  Those six little toddlers, all whom are loved and deeply missed taken by an action by a pool owner who propped, open a pool gate.  WHY?   Why aren’t these people being charged?   If you leave your child in a car you are charged.  If you leave your child at home alone you are charged yet you prop open a pool gate, make a safety barrier unsafe and that safety kills or injures a child why aren’t you responsible?   WHY?  Start charging them I say.   

In April 2010 Coroner Paul McMahon recommended that a criminal charge be created in NSW for ‘negligence causing death for pool owners’.  Absolutely!  If you breach the pool safety standard as a builder, owner or tenant you are responsible absolutely if you kill or harm a child.  Every Immersion/drowning MUST be investigated by police not just the deaths. 

Tammie Lacey, another advocate for Drowning prevention and awareness for Jack’s Gift agrees that a criminal charge needs to be created as well as a ONE Pool One Law regime like WA and QLD for NSW.  I support her cause.  Her son Jack was lost within four hours of arriving at house in the middle of the night only to woken at 7am with “Tammie I have a pool where is Jack?”.  I couldn’t imagine what Tammie felt that horrid morning in April 2006 but I do know that her loss devastated her and it too, like Hannah’s was preventable.  Compliance, building construction and certification with ongoing maintenance.    FOUR things that are imperative to ensure pools are not killers.   Supervision above all is the best preventative but drowning is so silent and even supervised kids drown.  By the time parents realise kids are in trouble they are already dead.  60 seconds is all it takes. Please sign her petition for NSW. 

I urge anyone reading this to have a look at your pool. 

Does your gate open outwards? 

is the lock at 1500mm?

do you have any objects within 900mm of the arch from the top of the fence?

300mm inside the fence?

is your gate working from a 10mm opening to a 900mm opening does it self close every time?

If not get it fixed and I strongly urge you to NEVER make that ‘oh my pools okay’ belief. Most parents screw this up and live with the consequences.  Heading towards year seven I see no major change in the public perception or their actions towards drowning and the prevention messages. People just think that it won’t happen to them, it can’t happen if they can swim and drowning only happens to ‘bad parents’.  Sadly so many advocates are burnt out and I have to admit that I am one of them.  I must find a balance as this has consumed me and its near killed me. I battled cancer last year and still wasn’t able to ‘leave this go’.  Drowning has been my life since 2007, its suffocating.

Drowning needs a famous role model to look up to, listen to and the advocate themselves must believe in this cause strongly.  Unless a strong advocate of public idol status steps up drownings will continue and the countless family foundations around the world will forever battle the roads ahead alone without a voice.  Our little parent voices just aren’t enough and there isn’t much being done because the dollar is the issue.  We just don’t have enough donations from the public as a non-government funded charity to advertise the awareness. Social media is all we have but it takes time and even that costs us. Advertising costs tens of thousands of dollars.  Donations we just don’t receive or sponsors we just can’t get. After all I’ve been told ‘drowning isn’t a sexy charity to donate too’.

When was the last time you heard “Supervise your children around water it prevents drowning”  or “Don’t prop open the pool gate, kids can drown in 60 seconds” or “Wear a life jacket – it’s your seat belt on the water”?   

Drowning needs the support of the community if we don’t get it from the community and the government more tragedies will happen and more families will be torn.

It is that simple.