Kids learn water safety in two-day course

An average of 3,960 people die from drowning each year in the U.S. Roughly 35 of those are in Alaska, according to federal statistics.

The Alaska Office of Boating Safety is looking to decrease those numbers through its Kids Don't Float education program, which came to town last Wednesday and Thursday.

Kids Don't Float started in Homer in 1996 as a life jacket loaner program. The stations, now found at different public water access points across the state, hold life jackets that can be borrowed at no cost and returned after use. The Office of Boating Safety joined the effort in 2000 and has since spread it statewide to 826 stations.

Instructor Iris Nawiesniak said the program is free and she and co-instructor Kosette Isakson will go where they are invited. The two came to Wrangell and taught in the classrooms at the elementary and high schools on Wednesday, then held pool classes on Thursday for students in the morning and for the community in the evening.

"We're trying to get everyone prepared before boating season, trying to get them to wear their life jackets and talk about cold-water survival," Nawiesniak said. "We hope the kids take this lesson home and share it with their parents. The majority of fatalities are adult males. It's really hard to change an adult male's behavior."

She said the program intentionally targets kids, so that, over the years, they'll continue to receive the information and "fatality rates will drop because they will have had that education as kids."

Isakson pointed out that Wrangell is fortunate to have a pool to learn in - not all communities in Alaska have access to such a facility. It helps them when teaching about falling into the water fully clothed since, as Nawiesniak pointed out, most people in Alaska go boating in their clothes and not in bathing suits.

Along with teaching kids what to do if they fall in the water, the program educates them on how to stave off hypothermia.

"A lot of people think hypothermia is going to be the most dangerous thing, that it's going to kill them if they fall into cold water," Isakson said. "The reality is the first two stages of cold-water immersion, like cold shock or incapacitation, swim failure or drowning is going to happen a lot sooner. Hypothermia is going to take longer to set in. If you have your life jacket on, you can survive in the water a lot longer than you think."

The duo said they have had calls letting them know the life jacket loaner program has helped save lives, as has the Kids Don't Float program.

"We usually have a canoe here and we do reboarding (instruction)," Isakson said. "We heard from a kid last year who was out on a small boat with his family. It capsized and he knew how to get back in because he had learned it at our pool session."