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07/28/2012 05:00 AM

Healthy Living: Children and pool safety

In the hot summer months, children often swim and play in water. But if a parent isn’t around to supervise, the fun can quickly turn into a nightmare. Geoff Redick reports.

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"I checked on Emily and Ashley, then I walked back in the house," said Christine Wark, mother.

Thirty seconds is how close Christine Wark came to every parent's nightmare.

"I kind of walked through and tried to kicked the door closed, and I thought I heard it close. But apparently it didn't close," said Wark.

Christine's youngest daughter, Marie, wasn't even a year old in July 2011. She could only crawl, and she was never out of mom's sight...until...

"Two minutes later, I heard Ashley, my oldest, screaming bloody murder...so I walk around the front of our house. I saw Marie's feet...and that's when everything just kind of went numb," said Wark.

It's a story Dr. Anne Brayer has heard far too often, children injured or drowned, at home in the pool.

"Parents sometimes will think that it's safe to leave their child in a body of water, thinking that if they were to run into trouble and start to drown, they would make a lot of splashing and yelling," said Dr. Anne Brayer, Golisano Children's Hospital.

But when a child is drowning, they cannot get their head above water. They cannot make a sound.

"Parents have been interviewed who have lost a child to a drowning accident, and they universally say that they didn't hear a thing," said Dr. Brayer.

In the hot summer months, Brayer says kids should swim. But parents should be safe.

"Having a safe fence around the pool. Any time children are around a body of water, especially young children, they need to be supervised by an adult. A child under three, you should be in the water with them, able to put a hand on them at all times," said Dr. Brayer.

But terrible mistakes can happen. And when they do, Christine Wark has one more bit of advice.

"Take a CPR class,” Wark advised.

After a hospital stay, Marie is now a normal two-year-old.

"It was a matter of thirty seconds, and it could've been....we wouldn't have been bringing her home," said Wark.

The difference that saved a life.