The water guards in the district are sounding the alarm: fewer and fewer children can swim properly.
With the pools closed for months in the wake of the lockdown, the situation has now worsened, because for a year now there has been no offer at all to learn to swim.
The danger of children drowning while bathing is growing, so the concern of the lifesaver.
District
- The lifeguards of the DLRG fear a deterioration in swimming skills. As a result of the swimming pool closings and the lack of training opportunities during the month-long lockdown, the DLRG expects both a further increase in children unable to swim and an increased number of drownings, especially in the summer months. The water guards and swimming experts in the district also have the same fear.
Florian Wenzel (42) from the Unterföhring water rescue service, like all the other members of the association, keeps an eye on the smaller visitors to the lake: "As soon as the sun comes out, many are out in paddle boats, and if you can't swim then it becomes dangerous." The station is occupied on weekends.
If parents have any questions about how to teach their offspring to swim, they are invited to get tips from the water watch on which exercises are particularly helpful: submerge, blow under water, push off the ground, open your eyes under water.
One million children nationwide affected
The months of June, July and August of last year showed how good weather can affect drowning cases: at least 234 people lost their lives in the water in these months, which were repeatedly characterized by heat waves and drought. According to the DLRG estimate, one million children nationwide could not be trained to be safe swimmers in 2020.
The most important thing for the water watch is whether the parents keep an eye on their children.
In Unterföhring, people are more sensitive than they have been in the past years.
Florian Wenzel: “There are parents who keep an eye on it.
With others you can immediately see that the cell phone, for example, is more important than what the children do. ”Years ago he fished out a child who ran out of strength with armbands.
Mom scolded: “What are you doing with my child?” She hadn't even noticed that it almost drowned.
The water watchmen (35 active and 25 young members) do their duty on weekends and public holidays in groups of at least four.
The team performs 140 to 180 first aid services per year, most of them not in the water, but on land.
Swimming clubs lack the youngsters
Vanessa Breunig from the swimming club “Riemerlinger Haie” raises a completely different aspect of not swimming. She sees a major disadvantage in the fact that the children who could not learn to swim in the past year are now a year older: "This means that a complete year is missing for the swimming club." The Riemerlinger Haie do not currently have an indoor swimming pool. The existing building will be demolished and the new building will not open until February 2022. In addition, the children also lack alternatives. The Pullach leisure pool is being renovated, Oberhaching is full, Ottobrunn does not have enough space.
According to Vanessa Breunig, the lost swimming year makes it impossible for children to get into competitive sport.
Even those who had learned to do so were very unsettled by the interim period and did not dare to go into the water for a long time.
The Riemerlinger Haie now want to focus on training beginners.
Talks about extra occupancy times in swimming pools such as the natural pool in Furth are ongoing.
Mayor: Swimming is not just fun
Open outdoor pools, close indoor pools: The Phönixbad Ottobrunn is still closed. Ottobrunn's mayor Thomas Loderer considers the previous closure strategy of the federal and state governments to be incomprehensible: “It has nothing to do with justice, even with realism.” Obviously, the swimming pool industry lacks a lobby. The mayor is certain: “Indoor swimming pools were never a problem in the pandemic, the risk of infection is very low. What you do to children who are not allowed to learn to swim is of the worst kind. ”He also sees running the Phönixbad as a public service, not just as leisure fun.
