Pools are pulling plug on deep ends, fearing safety hazard

Post Gazette ^ | June 30, 2003 | Jason Straziuso

[hole_n_one]

PHILADELPHIA -- The diving boards were pulled up in the 1980s, and now deep ends are being deep-sixed.

The rectangular municipal pool that many Americans grew up swimming, splashing and diving in is fast being replaced by shallow water park-style pools featuring spray toys and water slides.

[Jhoffa_]

This is pointless.

How can anyone enjoy a shallow swimming pool?

4' deep water get's booring in a big hurry.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Tell me this isn't the Onion. Every time I get the wife worked up to finally escape the Big Brother oppression of Europe and move to the States, some article like this surfaces and she gets scared off...

Well, they DID tell you one of your swing sets was too high for children. EU regs, ya know. At least this insanity is not govt inspired.

You've got great public swimming facilities in Europe and I hope those, too, won't fall to the Brussells Badmen...

[cmsgop]

4' deep water get's booring in a big hurry.

Unless there is a Hot Chick in there somewhere.....

[hole_n_one]

LOL!

[Jhoffa_]

Unless there is a Hot Chick in there somewhere.....

LOL!

What are you doing looking at "hot chicks" anyway.. ?

I thought you drove a V Dub

[wardaddy]

The Grand Hotel at Point Clear Alabama had a monster too.....lived next to it my senior year of HS at Fairhope.

All tile and about an acre plus some with high dives and whatnot.

I remember tower dives on a lake near Laurel Miss. as a kid. I don't know how high I went but it seemed damned high.

Around here folks cliff dive/jump from 70-100 foot into cave sinkholes with tiny surface areas....some die every year. I almost went off one called Blue Hole near Murfreesboro a few years back and 70 foot or so into about a 500 sq foot surface that was allegedly 30 foot deep. I dove it first for depth and it was about 13 foot deep. I'm tall...I passed.

My highest jumps with tennis shoes on (a must) have been from bridges.

Most hotels and apartments now have no deep end and Ys have dumped their high dives...shame.

[luckystarmom]

Being able to breath while you swim is the most important part of swimming that will save you if you ever fall in the water or need to swim a long distance.

Diving for objects won't be able to help with that. You can dive for objects and not be able to swim long distances.

I'm not against diving boards or diving pools, but our family loves our neighborhood pool. We have a pool in our backyard that is deep, and we don't use it. The kids like the other pool better. They play all sorts of games in the other pool and can take a break from tredding water.

[jocon307]

"Hmm... no deep end, so the kids don't really ever have to learn to swim.

Yep. That'll keep 'em from drowning."

GOOD POINT!

[Richard Kimball]

Remember when Americans were allowed to be BOLD!!!!!!

You don't get permission to be bold.

[Intolerant in NJ]

...The old-style "drowning pools" won't be missed, aquatics expert Tom Griffiths said...funny - the only story I remember about someone drowning in a Philly public pool recently was a year or so ago when a child lost her life because the two lifeguards who were supposed to be protecting her were off somewhere together smoking pot...hardly the pool's fault......

[Spok]

In a time when we have so much to fear that is real, why do we choose our own shadows?

[Eagle Eye]

They should fill 'em with sand.

Now you've got to deal with silica exposures. And cat poop.

[aruanan]

...but then they were left with a drowning pool. Children were sliding down that slope into the deep end," Griffiths said.

Griffiths said it was a "great, great idea" to fill pools in. "A typical diving well-type pool is a dinosaur."

Isn't there some big drowning pool where we can take all the safety Nazis like Griffiths?

[potlatch]

Pretty soon they are going to wrap us in cotton at birth, put us in a 'pod' and hand feed us the rest of our lives so no misfortune can befall us!!!

[Travis McGee]

We're raising a generation of sissies.

[FourPeas]

Being able to breath while you swim is the most important part of swimming that will save you if you ever fall in the water or need to swim a long distance.

Bringing oxygen into our lungs certainly is important. I disagree that breathing, as in knowing how to take air into the lungs while performing a stroke, is the most important thing if one falls in the water. Staying afloat, so you can take oxygen into the lungs, is the most important part.

From the point of view of someone who was a life guard and who grew up around large bodies of water, swimming long distances is often the wrong idea when one finds oneself in the water. Being comfortable floating and treading water is important. Spending time in deep water is certainly one way to accomplish this. Yes, at 5'4", I can tread water and float in 5-6' of water, but the water feels different when it's much deeper and there's a psychological aspect, too, knowing that you can't touch if your get tired or a cramp or whatever. The strange thing is, even at 38, I can still effortlessly tread water for a long, long time.

Being able to swim long distances is one part of swimming, but certainly not all encompassing. Yes, it's a good skill, but not he be all and end all. My guess is in these summer fun pools, not many of the children are lining up to swim laps in an orderly fashion. They're playing games, jumping, wanting to dive, developing a familaririty with the water that's important.

My guess is that there are reasons beyond depth that your children prefer the community pool. Think about it.

Diving for objects may not teach you to breathe while swimming, but it certainly builds breathing strength. Mr. FourPeas was a very successful member of his swimteam. Very successful. He swam the long distance events. When it comes to treading water and generally staying afloat in deep water, I can do it for much longer and am more comfortable at it than he. We're both very strong swimmers and his breathing with respect to swimming laps is far superior to mine. He's spent much of his time in the water swimming laps; I spent mine "just" diving for objects and playing in water over my head. (BTW, I do occasionally swim laps, although now that I do it less frequently I can only swim for about 30 minutes rather than 60.)

I still say removing the deep end is a silly (and sissy) plan. It does our society a great disservice.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Next, blue painted rubber to look like a pool, and kids, dressed in blow-up safety devices and sprayed with a fine mist of water, will "play" and "have fun" as though they actually were in a pool.

This is a nation of sissies. Even Mexico is kicking our ass.

[PatrioticAmerican]

So much for your career field. No one will no how to swim.

[Mr Crontab]

Having been in a bad bike accident, I can't agree here. Sure when they're doodling along at 2 MPH with training wheels. But once my son is going over about 15 - 20 MPH he gets a helmet. I certainly don't ride without one.

[FLAMING DEATH]

This is a step in the right direction. Next, we need to start filling in all lakes and rivers to a depth of four feet. When that's finished, we can start on the oceans.