Brockwell Lido

[Janie@eurolanresearc]

At Brockwell Park Lido this morning I witnessed a little girl drowning or nearly drowning (she was taken to hospital unconscious and I don't know what happened to her after that) and wondered if anyone else was there to discuss this with me and help me to decide on the appropriate action to take regarding the appalling lack of any sort of training it appeared the 2 lifeguards had received. I had spent Monday and Tuesday at the lido and the pool (olympic sized) was packed with people all day. there were only two lifeguards at any one time, and during yesterday and the day before I didn't hear a whistle blown once. There were hoards of teenagers jumping, bombing on top of each others heads,diving, throwing each other in and running fast and throwing themselves and others in the pool. At the time of the incident I saw a young woman jump in the pool in front of me and pull out a little girl's lifeless body not more than a few yards away from the lifeguard, with the young woman shouting for the lifeguard to do something but she appeared not to have noticed anything going on, and then instead of putting out a tannoy message for a doctor or nurse no one did anything for several minutes with the little girl on her back until someone thought to put her on her side. It appeared no one knew what to do until the paramedics arrived. I spend a lot of time at pools and there are always rules about jumping and diving etc. in fact I think sometimes they're too strict but at Brockwell Park Lido there are no rules, which is lovely if you have enough lifeguards to look after everyone but two guards and no rules is ludicrous, I fear the little girl may have been jumped on or overcome by water when kids were bombing in the pool. I don't know what to do now but can't rest until I know that someone has done something to make the place safer.

[marinamoomin]

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