The Union County Library System and Army Corps of Engineers are putting on summer programming for kids to cover water safety and methods to avoid drowning.
One of the classes was held at the Smackover Library yesterday with another one scheduled for Barton Library today at 2 p.m.
The class is taught by Sarah Nicks from the Army Corps of Engineers. She said water safety is one of the main concerns of the Army Corps, which is part of the reason behind wanting to do these classes.
Michael O'Connell, director of the library system, said he met Nicks at the Felsenthal Bream Festival last month and got to talking with her about doing programs through the libraries. The goal is to offer one of these classes at each branch of the library system over the course of the summer — it is in connection with the summer reading program. However, a date has not been set up for all of them.
"They want to make sure that everybody has water safety so I offered them all of my branches," O'Connell said. "It's an easy win and it gives us more content for our summer reading program."
Nicks started out the class by emphasizing to the students about the importance of swimming with a buddy — somebody who can help if something happens — and using a life jacket any time they're on the lake.
"The statistic that we like to tell everybody is that 80 percent of drowning victims are adult males and it's because they're not wearing their life jacket," Nicks said.
During the class, Nicks talked about an important saying for people to remember when faced with somebody who is drowning: "Reach, throw, row but don't go."
She said the main thing is to not reach out for somebody who is drowning because it may put you at risk of being pulled in. However, you still want to try to help them.
Nicks gave the students at the Smackover Library examples of things they might be able to reach with such as a boat paddle, a safety rope or a pool noodle.
When it comes to throw, she talked with the students of some common items they might be able to throw to somebody who is drowning. Some of these include a life jacket and a life saver device.
She also showed the students a device that is used by park rangers to help somebody who is drowning. It's a floating bag — one that won't sink — which contains a 100 foot long rope which unspools when the bag is thrown.
Nicks said the important thing with throwing a bag or other device is to make sure the person sees it being thrown to them.
When it comes to the row part is mostly for on a lake when somebody is in a boat and can row to the person who is drowning.
Michael Shine may be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook @MichaelAZShine for updates on Union County school news.