YMCA teaches Schenectady students life-saving water safety

SCHENECTADY COUNTY, N.Y. (NEWS10) - The Glenville YMCA hosted the Safety Around Water training event for 140 students from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Schenectady Thursday morning. YMCA staff and certified lifeguards held hands-on in-water training to equip children with essential water safety and drowning prevention skills.

 The training session coached students in practical skills such as floating, safe water entry, rescue techniques, and emergency response. Kids participated in 10 different indoor-outdoor water safety stations that left students with CPR training, bleeding control, reaching and throwing assist, and boating safety.

Kim Kowalski, the Glenville YMCA aquatics director, said this time of year is when young kids get very curious about water and need to be properly trained on how to swim and what to do in an emergency situation.

"We don't want kids to get into a situation where they're in water and they don't know what to do," Kowalski said. "As soon as that happens, they panic, and they freeze up. So, we want them to start being comfortable in the pool and building some muscle memory of what to do if you were to fall in the pool or if someone else were to fall into the pool. If you're swimming in a pool and you get tired, how to save yourself, how to save others."

Kowalski said two of the most crucial tips kids will take with them are to always ask for permission to enter any sort of water and make sure an adult is watching at all times. Sara Russ, 5th grade teacher at the Martin Luther King Jr. School of Excellence, said this training is necessary as some of her students have never been in a pool before, while many have pools at home.

"A lot of the children are around water of some sort, whether it is a community pool or their own pool in their backyard or a lake at a campsite, and when you're playing with your friends and you're enjoying the water, you don't really think of what safe means," Russ said. "If your friend falls in and your instinct is to save your friend, then they are putting themselves in danger."

According to the Children's Safety Network, drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for kids between the ages 1 through 4. Every year in the U.S., 3,572 people die from drowning, 945 of them are children. Kowalski recommends parents get their kids into swim lessons as young as six months and take a few lessons with them to ensure everyone remains safe.