Willow Glen Resident

Letters & Opinions

A child's safety is always a parent's job

By Moryt Milo

The first time I took my son to Raging Waters, he was 8 years old and as skinny as a pencil. A gust of wind could have blown him over, not to mention a pounding wave. So naturally, I was concerned about the giant water slides when we went through the gates. I gravitated toward the meandering river ride and the large swimming pool area, because those environments were controllable. On the other hand, I was completely fooled by wave pool.

Even though the attraction looked tame at the edge, there was no way I would let my son in the water without me.

When I hear about the death of 4-year-old Carlos Flores in the Great America wave pool, I couldn't understand how the mother had let her child enter the water alone. He didn't even know how to swim. It was a tragic lapse in judgement,

All a parent has to do is look at a wave pool when the waves are turned on to see that artificial calm turn into chaos.

I remember wading into the water with my son, his friend and an inner tube. As soon as the waves started, inner tubes were banging into each other, swimmers were pounded in all directions and my skinny kid and his friend were hammered by the waves. At one point my son was knocked over and almost went under. It was like human bumper cars.

We were about midway in the pool when the buzzer sounded to warn us that the waves were about to start. As they grew in intensity I found myself holding on to each kid to keep both of them close at hand. It would have been easy to loose sight of them even though I was with them. In fact, I remember telling them to grab the inner tube to steady themselves.

We fought our way back to the "shoreline," me pushing the inner tube through a rowdy crowd of bodies and rolling waves. It was definitely a wild ride. The kids thought the entire experience was awesome. They had great fun and didn't want to get out. I remember thinking, "Boy, this is not as safe as it looks." From that point on I made sure I was right next to them.

What I learned real quickly was on a hot day, when the park is crowded, the wave pool is packed. There is no way the lifeguards can see everything going on. These parks would need to station at least three to four lifeguards along each side of the pool and by the shallow end. Even then the commotion that occurs in the pool once the waves are ripping requires keen observation.

It's a fallacy to think you can just sit at the edge of the pool and let a preschooler or any small child traipse into the water without an adult at his or her side.

The one positive that has come out of this horrible death of the preschooler at Great America is the requirement that anyone shorter than 4 feet must now wear a life vest before entering a wave pool. Cedar Fair, the company that owns Great America, has mandated this at all 18 of its parks.

San Jose's Raging Waters and its parent company Palace Entertainment has implemented the same rule at Raging Waters, along with an increase in the number of lifeguards along the water's edge. There is also talk in the government about creating a law with safety guidelines for water-theme parks. This week state Sen. Elaine Alquist has said she plans to introduce a bill that will focus on making wave pools safer. She plans to incoporate into the bill a mandate on using life vests and an increase in the number of lifeguards monitoring the area.

All of these added precautions are a definite step in the right direction, and a long overdue requirement. But no matter how many rules are established or laws are passed, it still falls on a parent's shoulders to use good judgement and watch out for their children. We should never leave that job up to anyone else.

Moryt Milo is the editor of the Willow Glen Resident. She can be reached at 408.200.1051 or via e-mail at mmilo@
community-newspapers.com.