Testimonial #1
Jacob completed his initial instruction of the Safe Start lessons during the spring of 2003 and had a refresher lesson in the spring of 2004. Last summer, he was out by our pool with this grandmother shooting baskets into a basketball hoop that was turned with the hoop facing over the water. He was fully clothed (shoes and all) at the time. He leaned toward the hoop to shoot and lost his balance. He grabbed onto the hoop as he fell into the pool, which pulled the entire basketball net, base (water-filled) and pole down on top of him. The water was over his head, but he managed to get out from under the basketball hoop and swim up to the edge of the pool before my mother could get to him. The whole incident scared him, but he handled himself remarkably well for a young 3 year old. I have no doubt that the outcome could have been very different if he hadn’t been so comfortable with the water. My brother and sister live up in Illinois. They thought I was crazy putting Jacob into swimming lessons at such a young age-they thought he was too young to really learn. Jacob learned exactly what his Instructor said he would learn during the 6 weeks he was in Safe Start. He learned to save his own life should something unforeseen happen around the water (which is abundant in Florida), and a toddler’s life is full of “unforeseen.”
Testimonial #2
I am writing to thank you for your program. My daughter Ashley had her first Safe Start lessons in 2001 when she was a year and a half old, and then had a refresher lesson last summer (2002). We put Ashley into these lessons thinking that she would never really need them, we thought just in case. We were wrong.
Ashley finished her refresher lessons on a Monday. The next day she was outside by the pool with her Grandmother when she leaned over the edge to get a toy and sure enough she fell right in. Thankfully she had the Safe Start lessons because she automatically got onto her back and then flipped and “got the wall”.
Now it’s Memorial Day 2003, Ashley is scheduled for her refresher course in June and we are celebrating the holiday with a cookout. Ashley is on the pool steps, Daddy and Grandpa are in the pool, and Grandma and Mommy are sitting next to the pool. Four adults all right there and then the next thing we know Ashley, now 3 ½ , is in the middle of the pool on her back. No one knows exactly what happened for her to end up in the middle of the pool, only that she did exactly what she was taught a year before.
Lessons we thought our daughter would never use because she is never without an adult ended up being used two years in a row. Obviously it was the best lesson we ever could have given our daughter. Granted there were adults right there both times, but both times were enough for me to think about what could have happened if that had not been the case and be more thankful than ever that we put her in the program. Thank you so much for being there to teach my daughter this valuable lesson.
