National Campaign To Reduce Drowning Accidents

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 October 1950, Page 8

National Campaign To Reduce Drowning Accidents

! On a nation-wide scale, a cam- ■ paign to reduce the number of drownings is shortly to be launched. The National Committee of Swimming and Life-saving, as a preliminary, • has issued statistics of such deaths ! in recent years, but emphasises that j its objective is not to create a fear i complex. The aim is to encourage people to swim, but to swim with i safety. Care and caution, training in ; safety measures when using boats, as J well as tuition in swimming, are i pointed out as necessary in reducing : the death-rate.

Between November 1 last year and April 30 there were 88 drownings, although there were other factors involved in 11 cases, compared with 112 fatalities on the road. In the summer of 1948-49 there were eightytwo drownings, and in the previous summer eighty-seven. Drownings occurred in open sumps and drains, private and public baths, pools, lakes, creeks, rivers, and in the open sea. Of last summer’s victims, fifteen were under the age of 5, ten between 5 and 10, fifteen between the age of 10 and 15, and fifteen between 20 and 30. No fewer than sixty-one of the victims were under 30. To lighten the toll on youth, and perhaps inexperience, was the aim of all interested in life-saving. Twenty-six of the deaths occurred in rivers, the committee states, and greater effort was needed in this respect. The committee expects that, with the Government-sponsored antidrowning campaign launched late last season, and an early start with it this summer, a reduction of drownings can be expected. Government departments, the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association, the Royal Life-saving Society, and the New Zealand Surf Life-sav-ing Association, are to co-operate in the campaign.