http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/glenview/ct-met-glenview-drowning-0619-2-20120619,0,1341316.story
At a pool, a group of 19 children from a child care center is being supervised by 8 adults from the Child Care Center – more than 8:1 ratio required by regulations, and the pool has 12 lifeguards on duty, more than the 100:1 ratio of lifeguards to swimmers.
The State of Illinois has strict rules to make sure that children have to pass a swimming test or wear a life jacket if they fail the test before they go into a public pool.
Four year old Vincente Cardenas was pulled out of five feet of water, but too late to save him.
His uncle – an attorney from Boston demands to know… “Who was responsible for watching him?”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/glenview/ct-met-glenview-drowning-family-0621-20120621,0,5581530.story
George Bush, of course!
Here is a thought: When everyone is in charge, nobody is in charge. With 12 lifeguards, they’ll all assume that someone else is doing the watching.
The facility has several other zero risk places for a 4 year to have been but have fun an cool off
http://glenviewparks.org/index.php/facilities-parks/outdoor-pools/flick
Maybe “diversity” is to blame…using your principle of 12 chiefs and no Indians makes for poor management…I’m thinking they probably are required by “fairness rules” to hire 6 male and 6 female lifeguards. With only 1 kid swimming, the sun shining, and a dozen young males and females sitting bored in their bathing suits — well, you know, hormones are a powerful thing…they were probably all making out and ignoring the kid.
A “good lawyer” (like John Edwards) would find out which of those 12 lifeguards had parents with the deepest pockets and sue the crap out of them.
How is that for a jaded view of the world? 😉
One important detail I left out was the lifeguards didn’t spot the kid in trouble at all. Other swimmers told them there was a kid on the bottom of the pool and they jumped in and fished him out. If the pool was busy, it’s easy to believe that once the kid went to the bottom, he couldn’t be seen. He very likely was dead for a while before they fished him out.
In my jaded view of the world, the answer to the concerned relative’s question “Who was responsible for watching him?” – my answer is “His Mother”. Maybe I’ll be surprised, but I doubt a day care center would take kids on a trip like this without some kind of “permission slip” – but I also realize there is a good chance he’s one of a large group of children and/or the mother really doesn’t view taking care of her children as her job.
Glenview is a somewhat affluent suburb. The city is who has the deep pockets and I would think they also have insurance for something like this.
Keep a 4 yr. old out of the pool, especially if the adult “knows” the child cannot swim.
Flotation devices are used like toy’s in a public pool, and since the facility had other Zero Risk areas That’s where the child should have been. I taught my kids to swim at 3 years of age. But, having my own pool made it nessessary.
His uncle – an attorney from Boston demands to know… “Who was responsible for watching him?”…
I don’t know maybe your brother or sister..>>??
I’m guessing that a MA attorney has been following the results of the Fall River drowning last year that resulted in firings and policy changes there and around the commonwealth. If they can’t get a (probably Democrat) MA state employee to share information about best practices with a (probably Democrat) IL state employee, it speaks to how they spend their time and it doesn’t involve keeping kids safe. (Maybe they can take 20 minutes out of their busy days at the Charlotte DNC Convention this Summer).