What a terrible tragedy - one that really hits home with me! I cannot fault the child's cartetakers based on the little information we have.
My family and I have season passes to a big water park here in Marietta. At the beginning of the summer, I took my 4 and 6 year old sons one day. DH couldn't make it. My 6-year-old is a strong swimmer, but my 4-year-old is not quite there yet. We all know the park well and were having a great time.
Both kids wanted to go in the enormous wave pool, which I don't particulary enjoy - it's always just so crowded and chaotic. When we got there, I was getting my 4-year-old into a swim vest and my 6-year-old said, "Mom, I'm going in the pool." I said, "Wait a second" but by the time I got to the pool - which truly couldn't have been more than 60/90 seconds later - I couldn't find my older son anywhere.
Then they blew the whistle and the waves started. I wasn't feaked because that's not my nature, but I really did want to lay eyes on my older son. So I'm in shallowish water, holding hands with my 4-year-old and looking everywhere around this huge crowded undulating pool for my 6-year-old. Couldn't find him anywhere and was planning the conversation we would be having when the waves stopped.
All the sudden, I see the lifeguards pointing in the deepend and doing their dance. Whistles were blown, the waves were stopped abruptly and everyone was cleared from the pool to the shallow end and shore.
All of the sudden, I peer across the pool and see a lifeguard in the deepend with her little float and who do you think is swimming back across the pool with her....my 6-year-old! I could see that he was in no active distress and I went out as far as I could with my 4-year-old and claimed him, thanked the lifeguard, etc....
I said, "Seamus - what happened? Did you get in trouble out there - were you struggling?" and he said "No, Mom, I was just floating." I said, "How were you floating?" and, yep, you guessed it - he was doing what we as kids used to call the 'dead man's float' in the 10-foot deep section of the wave pool while the waves were going full force!
Very nice.
In a regular pool, he is allowed to go in the deep end and he just didn't think this was any different. As you can imagine, we had a nice long talk about it, and now we'll only do the wave pool if my husband and I can cover a man-on-man defense with the kids.
I was impressed with how on-the-ball the lifeguards were and am of course deeply grateful that my story is a comedy and not a tragedy.