A Big Day for Water Safety
The World's Largest Swimming Lesson™ takes place June 18 with organizers predicting it will set another Guinness World Record.
Many water safety and training organizations, plus the American Red Cross and the Canadian Red Cross, are supporting The World's Largest Swimming Lesson™, a June 18 event calling attention to pool and water safety awareness. WLSL lessons will take place simultaneously at 11 a.m. EDT at water parks, pools, and aquatic facilities throughout the United States and around the world.
Organizers hope to set another Guinness World Record for the number of participants, topping 20,000 who took part on June 14, 2011, the second year WLSL took place. Florida, California, and Texas had the larger U.S. participation that year, and the biggest increase and overall number of participants were in Mexico and Brazil, according to a WLSL news release.
According to CDC, which is a supporting organization for WLSL this year, drowning is the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death -- behind motor vehicle crashes -- for children ages 1-14. Children from 1 to 4 years old have the highest drowning rates, and most drownings in this age group occur in home swimming pools. From 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States, about 10 per day, according to the agency.