Erin Stewart, left, assists Spencer White out of shallow water in a water safety instructors course at the Lawrence High School indoor pool. As the weather warms and more people head for pools and lakes, swimmers are urged to know their limits and take the proper safety precautions.

The swimming season started with joyful cries of delight last weekend as children cooled off in pools and lakes across the region.

But beneath the surface of summertime’s quintessential activity lie some very serious risks.

People often overestimate their swimming abilities and underestimate conditions such as whether the water is too cold or rough, or they have jumped in too far from land, said Dean Ohman, leader of the Douglas County Underwater Search and Recovery Team.

From 1990 to 2007, nine people drowned in Douglas County. During the same time, 534 people drowned in Kansas and of those, 155 were under age 15, according to Safe Kids Kansas.

In the past two years, emergency room doctors at Lawrence Memorial Hospital saw five cases of water-related injuries.

“There are things that parents and caregivers can do to help prevent children from being at risk for drowning,” Safe Kids Kansas outreach coordinator Daina Hodges said.

Children are particularly at risk. Drowning is the second highest cause of unintentional death for children ages 1 to 4 and 10 to 14.

“This needs to be taken seriously,” said Lynn Marotz, an associate professor of applied behavioral science at Kansas University and author of “Health, Safety and Nutrition for the Young Child.”

Public pools

Obey the rules posted at the pool.

That’s the first piece of advice given by Annette McDonald, a long-time American Red Cross water safety instructor and coach of the state champion Free State High School girls swimming team.

Signs advising only one person on the diving board, no running or not carrying children on your shoulders are all there for a reason, she said.

And parents shouldn’t just rely on the lifeguards to keep their kids safe. Studies have shown that almost half of children who drown were being supervised, Marotz said.

“What happens — the parents are not dedicating their attention to children in the pool,” Marotz said. “They are distracted talking to friends, reading a book, on the phone, not concentrating on what the child is doing.”

Private pools

Three out of every four pool drownings occur at homes, according to Safe Kids Kansas.

Marotz recommends that a fence completely surround any water feature, including fish ponds and fountains, as well as spas or hot tubs. Around a pool, toys and furniture should be cleared away so as not to attract children. And special attention should be paid to children age 5 and under.

Marotz noted that toddlers don’t have the ability to process cause and effect. So they don’t think about falling in if they reach into a pool to grab a ball. As for preschoolers, they better understand their limitations, but they are more spontaneous.

“They know never to go by the pool alone, but if that child sees something they are going to forget what their parents taught them,” Marotz said.

It takes less than 2 inches of water to drown, which is a problem for the top-heavy toddler age group — toddlers topple over easily and have trouble getting back on their feet.

Marotz and McDonald both recommend that children take swimming lessons to give them an increased comfort level in the water.

Those lessons also teach children how to help someone who is in distress. Depending on the class, students are shown how to call for help or throw a life-saving device to someone who is drowning.

“That’s what I love about Red Cross, it embeds in every single level of swimming some kind of personal safety or water safety (element),” McDonald said.

Bodies of water

When Clinton Lake was still new, in the early 1980s, park rangers would see about one drowning a year. That has dropped in the past decade to about one every couple of years, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers park manager David Rhoades said.

Nationwide, about 800 people die in boating accidents each year. In 50 percent of those instances, alcohol was involved. In nine out of 10 drownings, the victim wasn’t wearing a life jacket.

The best way to keep safe on the water is to wear a life jacket, Ohman said.

“People would have been saved if they would have had those on,” said Ohman, who has helped search for drowning victims since 1995.

Floaties, beach balls or rafts shouldn’t be relied upon to keep children afloat. If a person doesn’t know how to swim, then a life jacket classified as a personal flotation device should be used.

Rhoades also recommends that swimmers not confuse pool swimming with open water swimming. Lakes have uneven depths and murky water so swimmers don’t know what’s underneath them.

For popular places such as the swimming areas at Clinton Lake and Perry Lake, there aren’t any lifeguards keeping an eye on unattended children.

And, no one should ever swim alone.

“People need to be more prepared,” Rhoades said.