so sad, child drown at Art of Animation Resort - Page 2 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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I know the one out in the Little Mermaid section had a fence around it, but I don't recall if there was one around the Main Pool.
Yes, there is a fence around the main pool - and you need to use your MB to enter. We saw it last year when we visited the resort to walk around. IMO, there are only 3 ways that little kid got in there - someone else opened the gate and either let him in or he ran in, the gate was somehow left open and he got through it without his parents noticing it or his parents intentionally took him in there. If his parents took him in, then they were very lax in watching after him. If it was one of the first two, as we all agree, it only takes is a second.
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Another helicopter parent here-and proud of it. I've already buried one child-I'm going to do to everything I can to make sure my remaining kids are safe.
Lots of prayers for that family. The happiest place on earth has now become their hell of earth.
I have lost a child too and if anyone thought I was a helicopter parent before, I can't imagine what they think of me now. You just have to be..
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Just read this from further up I missed before. Yikes!
I can easily see how one could turn for just a moment perhaps getting one's bearings ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pax
Just getting to and from your rooms, at AoA, can involve walking along next to the main pool. I know the one out in the Little Mermaid section had a fence around it, but I don't recall if there was one around the Main Pool. I am pretty sure there were not fences around the pools at POP century in '09, at all ... nor the main pool at AsMu in '01 ... so not having one at the main pool of AoA is entirely believable.
I do recall now waking through the pool area at ASM to get to the food court.
It's heartbreaking [emoji26]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I do recall now waking through the pool area at ASM to get to the food court.
At AoA, the pools are all fenced in. That hasn't happened at the All Stars and Pop so that's why you'd remember walking through the pool area and not around it.
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Even if this family was at the pool intending to swim, there are all sorts of potential distractions that could enable a toddler whose sole focus is SWIM NOW to slip into the pool unnoticed.
People arrive at a pool area looking for unoccupied lounge chairs or a place to drop beach bags, towels and other belongings. Each parent might easily believe the other has hold of a toddler's hand or is watching the child.
Perhaps one says, "Honey, did you bring the sunscreen?" The other replies, unaware that s/he has let go the child's hand while answering.
And then, if there are other children to attend to, it's all too easy to envision how a small boy could slip away and get into the pool on his own.
Most of the time, thankfully, a parent or someone else catches a determined toddler before disaster occurs. For some reason we likely will never know, this was the sad exception.
We can feel we've taken every reasonable precaution and have the very thing we sought to prevent occur anyway. Life is sometimes horribly unpredictable.
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This whole thing is just heartbreaking to me. A vacation meant to make lasting happy memories .... and instead they've got heartache and their lives will never be the same.
I do know that on our next trip I will be extra annoyingly vigilant to my own children as well as trying to be more observant of our surroundings as well. Because you never, ever know. When pools are busy, sometimes it's hard to keep tabs on which bobbing head in the water belongs to your child ..... and I would be eternally grateful to someone if they were to rescue my child should they ever need it. I'll definitely try to make an effort to observe any and all children in the pool -- just in case. Because I'd feel terribly guilty as well, if I witnessed something that could have been prevented.
Several Disney trips ago my second youngest who is a pretty decent swimmer got into a scary situation. I was actually watching him. I *thought* I was watching him swim, but he was actually struggling. Drowning is silent and can happen right in front of you! He kept pulling on a woman's arm (I think she thought he was being annoying). I motioned for him to move away from her. After he didn't, I walked over to tell him to stop pulling on people and realized he was holding on to her because he had gotten overly exhausted and didn't have the strength to swim to the edge.
I later read an article about how it is somewhat common for children (and adults) to drown with others all around them. When they are struggling to swim- they can't yell for help or wave their arms like you see on television. They just barely hold their heads up. It looks like they are just wadding or swimming- when actually they are drowning... and then they go under- and that's it. It's really scary! I always made my kids wear life jackets when swimming until they could swim. But even children or adults that know how to swim can drown...
It just reminds me to really keep an eye on kids around water -always!
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Several Disney trips ago my second youngest who is a pretty decent swimmer got into a scary situation. I was actually watching him. I *thought* I was watching him swim, but he was actually struggling. Drowning is silent and can happen right in front of you! He kept pulling on a woman's arm (I think she thought he was being annoying). I motioned for him to move away from her. After he didn't, I walked over to tell him to stop pulling on people and realized he was holding on to her because he had gotten overly exhausted and didn't have the strength to swim to the edge.
OH, my goodness ... I am so very very happy that your experience didn't turn into a tragedy! To come so CLOSE to it ... terrifying, is what that is. O_O
And your story makes the video, below, all the more relevant:
I'll give you a hint: the lifeguard spots the child in trouble, and jumps in - with a whistle-blast - at 0:15. Almost everyone around him is completely oblivious to what's happening, until the lifeguard arrives. And that child would have died, surrounded by other people, parents and children alike, if the lifeguard hadn't seen him.
That is what drowning in a busy pool actually looks like. Most of us simply wouldn't recognise it, at least not in time to be any use or help.
So true. A crowded pool provides less safety not more.
I was staying at a hotel in Illinois in February. The pool was just a rectangle and not so big. A large group was at the pool together and one of the young girls (about 4 - 6 years old) in their group had a seizure while in the water. Despite the crowd or because of the crowd, no one noticed her until her body was limp and lifeless.
It took a high school student with CPR training to revive her -- took just over 40 compressions! He brought her back from the dead.
By the way, the student who gave the CPR was not at the pool. He answered the call when parents came running down the hallway screaming, "who knows CPR!"
So true. A crowded pool provides less safety not more.
I was staying at a hotel in Illinois in February. The pool was just a rectangle and not so big. A large group was at the pool together and one of the young girls (about 4 - 6 years old) in their group had a seizure while in the water. Despite the crowd or because of the crowd, no one noticed her until her body was limp and lifeless.
It took a high school student with CPR training to revive her -- took just over 40 compressions! He brought her back from the dead.
By the way, the student who gave the CPR was not at the pool. He answered the call when parents came running down the hallway screaming, "who knows CPR!"
Holy cow you just gave me goosebumps!!! This is why everybody should be taught CPR and this is why AEDs are everywhere in the world now~they work!!
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I bought my daughter a swimsuit with floats built into it. However it would not hold her head above water like a good life jacket should. Its definitely a reminder to us all to be extra diligent!
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