When a near tragedy wasn’t prevented, partly because a member of staff’s lack of awareness of children’s behaviour
What happened?
A leisure centre was hosting a swimming gala which was organised by the local swimming club and operated by the centre management. The leisure centre was still open for business, although it was late afternoon on a Sunday and things were winding down in the rest of the facility. The gala was in the main pool and there was a shallow learner pool which you had to walk past to get to the main pool. There was a chain across the entrance to the learner pool discouraging its use.
There were lots of swimming club officials present, the gala was lifeguarded, and there were swimmers walking to and from the changing rooms, past the learner pool, on a regular basis.
A 21 month old boy is found motionless, face down in the shallow learner pool.
So how did the boy end up in the water? He had been at a birthday party and had managed to evade his parents’ attention. He wandered down the corridor, managed to open the changing room door, found himself on poolside, crawled under the chain, and got into the water. He had been spotted in the corridor on his own by a 19 year old member of staff, but was not spoken to or stopped, as he didn’t find the child’s behaviour unusual.
The boy was rescued from the water, and was thankfully fine – it was a near miss.
Legal Outcome
No further action was taken
What can we learn from what happened?
The 19 year old member of staff did not recognise that the 21 month old boy was, as are all 21 month old children, exploring the world in his own way. Would a 30 year old father or mother with years of parenting behind them intervened? Almost certainly yes, you would certainly hope so. The sport and leisure industry employs a lot of young staff, and a key element of safety management is understanding how people behave, including children. So it is important that, as much as possible, these staff are trained in this area.
Source of Information
As described on training course