DB2
Stay out of the ocean and the sharks wouldn’t be able to eat them…
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And they won’t be electrocuted by boat batteries.
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kids 1-4? So after 4 years old they are free to drown? Hey kid you have 4 years to learn how to swim or we are throwing you in the deep end.
Andy
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Over four maybe they know they can’t swim?
DB2
Doesn’t mean they still can’t drown.
What was/is a local sad story for me. Never too late to learn but earlier the better.
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The key to it if you are going to save someone from drowning is to punch them out so they can’t drag you down while saving them.
Andy
Back in the day when I took lifeguard training, the teaching was to swim down if they were dragging you down. The idea being that they won’t like being underwater and will let go.
Do that a few times until they pass out. Much easier on the knuckles. 
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We were taught to swim down before you got to them, go underwater to them, grab their legs and turn them away from you, then surface behind them, grab them across their chest and get them out of the water on your side while you sidestroke to get propulsion.
If they continue fighting, of course, you are free to clock them.
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There were a couple TV series, in the 80s, trying to rip off “Raiders Of The Lost Ark”. One of them was “Tales Of The Gold Monkey”, set in French held South Pacific Islands in the late 30s.
In the Pilot for “Tales…” John Hillerman played a Na2!. In one sequence, Hillerman and series star Stephen Collins, are fighting, fall down a waterfall, and land in the pool of water at the bottom. In one of the supplements to the DVD box set, Collins says Hillerman could not swim, and nearly drowned both of them in the waterfall sequence. Unfortunately, no-one has been thoughtful enough to upload the waterfall sequence, but here is the poker sequence.
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It still amazes me that, even today, not every adult has learned how to swim (or stay afloat), if only how to tread water.
Pete
The “new” part of the high school I went to, which had a pool, was built in 1925, so swimming was part of the curriculum. Hillerman was born in 1932, but in Texas. Being “not football”, maybe swimming didn’t count for much in Texas at that time?
Steve
I’m sure you’re right, but he was born in a town right next to a rather large lake, which is how I learned to swim - maybe he moved to a less aquatic environment early? Both of the collegiate-level schools he attended must have had pools, too, but it’s likely a mindset: you don’t need to learn to swim since you’ll never be in water (until you are, of course).
Pete
While taking a couple phys-ed classes were mandatory when I was in college, you had a choice of classes. When I was in high school, there was no choice. Swimming was part of the mandatory phys ed class.
Steve
Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez expressed the importance of water safety and drowning prevention Tuesday by announcing the approval of a new swim voucher program.
I thought they already had a program in Cuba for immigrants to the United States.
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