Influencers child drowned while husband watched NBA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What state is this? IMO all private pools should be required to have locking covers and/or secondary gates.

Arizona. I agree with you but also not surprised this isn't the law in Arizona, given their gun laws and the general libertarian streak to their politics.

That awful child car death case from last year was also in Arizona. Also involved a dad who was supposed to be watching the kid but was engrossed in entertainment (in that case, video games and also I think there was evidence of alcohol and maybe drug use).

Arizona and Florida are filled with people like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given the facts that have just come out, it really bothers me that the dad won’t be charged. He allowed a 3 year old to play, unattended, near a pool with no safety features to prevent accidental drowning, and then lied to investigators. Sure, he could have accidentally estimated the amount of time his son was out of his sight incorrectly, but he claimed to have been watching the boy, yet his account of what the boy was doing was entirely inaccurate. He was not watching his son at all. Only a completely derelict parent would live with a backyard pool with no features to prevent drowning and let their 3 year old play in the backyard without any supervision.

Would anyone here take their 3 year old to the neighborhood pool, which has lifeguards, and pay no attention whatsoever to the child for 9 minutes?

My kid is 8 and a strong swimmer and I don't let her play in or near a pool without adult supervision. I was at the pool with her last weekend and she and her friends kept wanting to switch the pool they were playing in so the whole time the other mom and I are texting to make sure one of us could still watch. And the pool has lifeguards! But kids make mistakes, the lifeguards are young, at the end of the day I'm really invested in keeping my kid safe.

Exactly. I can’t imagine having a 3 year old and a backyard swimming pool with no features to prevent accidental drowning, and letting my child play in the backyard unsupervised. I wouldn’t do it even if my 3 year old was a proficient swimmer and knew how to turn over and float on his back — but this particular child didn’t even have those skills! Why didn’t he if he was growing up with a pool in the backyard?

[Anonymous]

They had a newborn. Probably a bit sleep deprived. He was feeding the newborn and watching the game. 9 minutes can pass quickly when your mind is elsewhere. Drowning is one of the leading causes of death in young kids. This unfortunately happens all too often. I don’t think you hear of parents being charged for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To add …. I hope this gets a lot of coverage so any family that doesn’t yet have a safety gate immediately gets one. It’s fine to say “oh we always watch our kid” but in reality …. Not everyone watches a kid all the time. Just blaming this dad minimizes the larger issue, which is that they made an affirmative choice not to have the proper safety mechanisms in place.

But nobody thinks it will happen to them, which is why this family didn’t take any precautions even though they were encouraged to do so many times, and why other families with young children have declined to add safety gates to their pools. The outcome here is that the prosecutors felt there was little chance of conviction, so they’re not even going to file charges. This story doesn’t give anyone any extra incentive to install gates.

I mean a lot of us are very careful with our kids around pools specifically because we know it could happen to us. So it's not accurate to say "nobody thinks it will happen to them."

Pediatricians now often ask questions like whether there are guns in the home or smokers in the home, because these are considered public health issues at this point given the impact it can have on child health and safety.

In a place where home pools are common, they should ask if there is a pool in the home and if so, ask follow ups about safety measures and keep checking in about it -- is the pool secured yet? here's a pamphlet on pools safety with toddlers, here are statistics on child drownings in home pools, has the child started swimming lessons yet? what are your targets for being able to do a safety swim, what are you doing in the interim to ensure safety by the pool?. It might not save every kid but it would save some.

People freak out about the use of flotation devices for kids because they are thought to increase the changes of drowning, because kids become reliant on them and then jump in the pool assuming they will float even if they don't have a vest or floatie. What doesn't get mentioned enough is that using flotation devices if your kid only goes to a community or hotel pool with a supervising adult is actually not a big deal, because the child is never going to be near a pool without an adult right there. The issue with flotation devices is really for people who have pools at home or where the child will be in a vacation home or relative's home with a pool, because that's how kids wind up poolside and think "oh I will just jump in" not realizing that without their swim vest, they will drown. The real problem is not the swim vest but the risk of a kid winding up in a pool unsupervised.

[Anonymous]

Dad sounds like a man - child. She should divorce him. His is an extreme case of not wanting to do the work. Every pool needs a fence + alarm. No excuses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They had a newborn. Probably a bit sleep deprived. He was feeding the newborn and watching the game. 9 minutes can pass quickly when your mind is elsewhere. Drowning is one of the leading causes of death in young kids. This unfortunately happens all too often. I don’t think you hear of parents being charged for it.

In many cases, people weren’t showing this level of disregard for safety. Accidents happen, even when you’ve made some effort to keep your child safe. This dad made no effort and lied about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They had a newborn. Probably a bit sleep deprived. He was feeding the newborn and watching the game. 9 minutes can pass quickly when your mind is elsewhere. Drowning is one of the leading causes of death in young kids. This unfortunately happens all too often. I don’t think you hear of parents being charged for it.

The newborn is likely why he won't be charged, because they will use the reasons you cite as an excuse. They'll say he was overwhelmed caring for two young kids, that he was sleep deprived and not thinking clearly, etc.

But none of that explains the decision to have a backyard pool that was totally unsecured while there were two children under the age of 5 in the house. No fence, no cover, and apparently the doors the yard were not even regularly locked or secured with a child safety device, all of which could have prevented this awful tragedy. WHY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dad sounds like a man - child. She should divorce him. His is an extreme case of not wanting to do the work. Every pool needs a fence + alarm. No excuses

He is definitely responsible for not supervising his child and shouldn't have custody of their infant, but they are both responsible for not having their pool secured.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What state is this? IMO all private pools should be required to have locking covers and/or secondary gates.

Arizona. I agree with you but also not surprised this isn't the law in Arizona, given their gun laws and the general libertarian streak to their politics.

That awful child car death case from last year was also in Arizona. Also involved a dad who was supposed to be watching the kid but was engrossed in entertainment (in that case, video games and also I think there was evidence of alcohol and maybe drug use).

Arizona and Florida are filled with people like this.

In FL it is law that pools have at least one safety feature/ barrier to prevent accidental drowning for this reason. Arizona law requires swimming pools to be enclosed by a barrier, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To add …. I hope this gets a lot of coverage so any family that doesn’t yet have a safety gate immediately gets one. It’s fine to say “oh we always watch our kid” but in reality …. Not everyone watches a kid all the time. Just blaming this dad minimizes the larger issue, which is that they made an affirmative choice not to have the proper safety mechanisms in place.

But nobody thinks it will happen to them, which is why this family didn’t take any precautions even though they were encouraged to do so many times, and why other families with young children have declined to add safety gates to their pools. The outcome here is that the prosecutors felt there was little chance of conviction, so they’re not even going to file charges. This story doesn’t give anyone any extra incentive to install gates.

I mean a lot of us are very careful with our kids around pools specifically because we know it could happen to us. So it's not accurate to say "nobody thinks it will happen to them."

Pediatricians now often ask questions like whether there are guns in the home or smokers in the home, because these are considered public health issues at this point given the impact it can have on child health and safety.

In a place where home pools are common, they should ask if there is a pool in the home and if so, ask follow ups about safety measures and keep checking in about it -- is the pool secured yet? here's a pamphlet on pools safety with toddlers, here are statistics on child drownings in home pools, has the child started swimming lessons yet? what are your targets for being able to do a safety swim, what are you doing in the interim to ensure safety by the pool?. It might not save every kid but it would save some.

People freak out about the use of flotation devices for kids because they are thought to increase the changes of drowning, because kids become reliant on them and then jump in the pool assuming they will float even if they don't have a vest or floatie. What doesn't get mentioned enough is that using flotation devices if your kid only goes to a community or hotel pool with a supervising adult is actually not a big deal, because the child is never going to be near a pool without an adult right there. The issue with flotation devices is really for people who have pools at home or where the child will be in a vacation home or relative's home with a pool, because that's how kids wind up poolside and think "oh I will just jump in" not realizing that without their swim vest, they will drown. The real problem is not the swim vest but the risk of a kid winding up in a pool unsupervised.

Sorry, I guess I should have been more specific. People like the Kiser family, who had already made the decision not to add safety features to their backyard pool even though they have little kids and have heard about kids drowning and have been told repeatedly that it’s unsafe, aren’t taking the risks seriously. They’re engaging in magical thinking: it’ll be fine because we’ll just be careful. They’ll hear this story and think to themselves, well, that dad wasn’t careful, but we’re careful.

[jsteele]

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