Dear Director Feltri,
accidents like the one that occurred in the Caraglio biopark, in Cuneo, where a seven-year-old girl was found dying two meters deep in one of the lakes in that area, are becoming more and more frequent. How is it possible that they happen? We are too light-hearted, distracted, perhaps also because of the use of cell phones, which we now always have in our hands. Perhaps if we paid more attention to others, especially children, tragedies like that would not occur so frequently. I am not accusing anyone, but every day we read about people drowning. And that must mean something. Let’s wake up. It only takes a moment to pass from this world to the afterlife.
Diego Ferro
Dear Diego,
the perception that there is an exponential increase in accidents of the type you report is, in fact, widespread, since just in these days the news has told us of adults and children who have lost their lives by drowning. Carelessness, underestimation of risks, lack of precautions, inexperience, ignorance, there are many causes that contribute to giving rise to such gloomy and dramatic events. I point out that those who perish are often people who are trying to save the lives of others who find themselves in difficulty in the water. This is how the 57-year-old grandmother died, for example, who, in Vieste, jumped into the sea to save her three-year-old granddaughter. And it is likely that these are more or less the dynamics that led to the death of a mother and son of Ukrainian origins who drowned in Lake Garda last Tuesday. Their bodies were found 18 meters deep. Perhaps the mother tried to save her son or vice versa. Will we ever know? Probably not.
The truth is that seas, lakes, streams, rivers, swimming pools, wells, canals of all kinds are potentially deadly traps. The data says so. According to those collected and released by the World Health Organization, 320,000 drownings occur every year and over half of the victims are under 25 years old.
In Italy, the annual victims are between 300 and 350, an average of almost one per day. Numbers that are shocking. We are a country surrounded by the sea, therefore a people who should have developed a certain familiarity with water, knowing its dangers, yet over half of Italians seem not even able to stay afloat in deep waters. Which does not stop us from venturing into the water adopting reckless behavior.
Children are more exposed to the risk of drowning, and it is also more difficult for them to ask for help. This is why it is essential to make public and private swimming pools safe, to constantly supervise children, especially when they wander around the pools, to explain the dangers to them, to educate them. But education is also useful to us, especially to us adults.
Our parents have always told us that it is harmful to bathe immediately after eating. And we have stuck to this rule, convinced that we have learned everything we need to know. However, this is not enough. There are other life-saving behavioral rules, perhaps even more important. The main one is perhaps that you should never enter the water alone.
As for children, the fact that they are equipped with life jackets and armbands as well as the presence of lifeguards in the pool as on the beach are not sufficient guarantees that can allow us a moment of distraction. Attention must be constantly focused on the child.
Lakes are particularly risky, even when they remain shallow, like rivers for that matter. In the vast majority of cases they are not suitable for swimming, yet we don’t care about the bans and sometimes this choice costs us our skin.
If we want to reduce the number of victims, we need to become aware that bathing is not a game and that water, just like
fire, can kill. Diving is fun and enjoyable only when we have provided for our own safety and that of others, thus avoiding turning a day at the beach or lake into a real tragedy.