Video: Babies Swimming for Their Lives

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NEW ALBANY, Miss. (WCBI) – The summer months are upon us and that means more time near pools and lakes. While that may be fun, it can easily turn into every parent’s nightmare. Drowning is the leading cause of accidental deaths in children under the age of four.

Addison Jones learned how to float in water when she was just over a year old. Now at the age of four she is able to swim across her pool without any floatation devices.

Her mother Leslie enrolled Addison and her younger brother in a swimming program that taught them how to swim, *and* save themselves should an accident occur.

“So many people react to things after the fact and we wanted to kind of have a little foresight and seeing we’re going to build a pool and our kids are young and we didn’t want to build a pool and not know how to swim,” says Jones.

Once a Lifeguard, Leslie has seen accidents, even when there are large crowds of parents surrounding the pool.

“The people are standing around a pool more accidents seem to happen at that point because every adult assumes taht someone else is watching them and they may be kind of watching, but like you said they are talking about their new cell phone or they are talking about whatever and they’re having a few drinks,” says Jones.

With so many drowning deaths each year,  Leslie says it’s important for all children to learn survival skills.

“You cannot put a price on a life it’s just plain and simple and accidents happen. We have so much water around here even if you don’t own a pool there are ponds, rivers and what not and you just don’t know when it’s going to come in handy,” says Jones.

According to the center for Disease Control and Prevention 1 in 5 people who die from drowning are children ages 14 and under. With the infant Self Save Rescue lessons there have been over 800 documented survival stories from using this method.

Jones says, “If they are able to roll back in their bed and on the floor we can teach them to roll back and float and they learn to maintain as you saw in the floating position that position should they fall in the pool or roll in the pool.”

These simple survival skills can be taught to children as young as 6 months.

David Grishom, a parent of 21 month old little girl, knows that every second counts when a child is in the water.

It gives several minutes, critical seconds of she falls in somewhere that help her survive so we are very comfortable and gives us a lot of ease if something like that had happen.

Regina Cook, a certified infant Instructor sees on average of 75 kids per year. Her job never gets old.

“We’re just amazed everyday to see each child we do be able to survive when we are not there,” says Cook.

There are currently only four certified infant instructors in the state of Mississippi. For more information about infant swimming lessons, go to www.infantswim.com.