More efforts are needed to avoid swimming accidents in Bahrain
TDT | Manama
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Reported by Zahra Ayaz
Safe swimming practices hogged the limelight yesterday as Royal Life Saving Bahrain (RLSB) signed a community partnership agreement with government authorities. RLSB is the nation’s peak aquatic authority in drowning prevention and water safety.
They work to unite the communities, institutions and local leisure industry under a shared objective. The main strategies that are provided by RLSB are to teach swimming, provide safe locations, train in first aid, develop lifesaving people, and improve boating safety.
Speaking to The Daily Tribune, Sam Rahman, General Manager of Royal Life Saving Bahrain, said: “Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is the quick response for any emergency, whether it occurs on land or in the sea. If they act swiftly and safely to stop an injury or give first aid to someone in need, anyone can save a life on a daily basis.
“At the moment, one in ten persons survive cardiac arrest incidents that don’t take place in a hospital setting. The first step in the chain of survival is someone understanding how to check if the person is breathing or not and calling the ambulance right away if they are conscious or not really moving.
“The person’s heart should be checked is the second step, and then the person should be taken to one of the closest hospitals is the third step. All of these places where we work, learn, and live are communities to which we belong and which we support one another because we have similar interests.”
Rahman highlighted that each person has a responsibility to come up with noble ways to inform and empower people to save lives. The safety partnership is a new effort by RLSB to bring these communities closer together.
By just training individuals to swim and educating them about the risks and how to exercise caution, we can save lives. According to sources, 60 lives were lost to drowning in Bahrain in the last five years. Due to lack of basic swimming skills, 50 per cent of adults cannot swim and 47pc of children cannot swim, while 95pc of children in the Kingdom currently do not learn swimming in primary schools.
Four out of five people in the Kingdom do not participate in any aquatic activities whereas 70pc of the population rarely go swimming. Public beaches have no lifeguard services, and 84pc of people have agreed on the need for appropriately qualified beach lifeguards.
The Daily Tribune recently reported that a Bahraini diver named Nashme Hassan Al Haddi went missing on a trip in the Kingdom’s northern region. The body of the missing diver was discovered two days later close to Hayr Shtaya.
Sources claim one must take the necessary precautions before embarking on such an excursion, including gathering all relevant meteorological information, determining if it is windy or not, consulting the safety personnel, and remaining alert at all times.
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