TOLL OF DROWNING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22950, 31 January 1938, Page 10

TOLL OF DROWNING

In a little over six weeks 40 people have lost their lives through drowning in New Zealand, and about the same number have been rescued when in jeopardy in the water during the period. Notwithstanding the efforts of many organisations throughout the country in arranging for tuition in swimming and in developing life-saving services on popular beaches, the drowning statistics show little improvement. The last Year Book gives the following figures: 1920, 150 cases; 1925, 131 ; 1930, 132; 1935, 134. In the five years 1931-35 there were 600 deaths through drowning, or only 264 less than the number of deaths through motor accidents. Considering that swimming is practically confined to four or five months of the year and that many people living distant from the sea rarely bathe, the toll on life from this cause is so heavy that there is the strongest argument for making swimming a compulsory school subject. Inevitably there will be drowning accidents even among good swimmers through misadventure of one kind or another. Unfortunately it is impossible to provide instruction for adults unless men and women themselves seek it or accept it. The mounting figures for drownings ought to be an incentive. To learn to swim ought to be a personal obligation, a form of costless life insurance, and all who cannot swim should remember that the mischance which might place them in difficulties in the water might also impose a risk for some would-be rescuer. But at the best risk will always lurk near, for, as the National Committee of Swimming and Life-saving has pointed out, the proportion of swimmers who become highly proficient is small. It emphasises the need for caution by all bathers and points to the caution employed by those most competent in the water. In this accomplishment a little knowledge is often a dangerous thing.