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Las Cruces Participates In National Water Safety Event

http://youtu.be/kwp6OWP0oo4

Every Year Swimming pools around the country team up to participate in the World’s Largest Swimming Lesson offering free lessons to children, and this year Las Cruces Aquatic Center participated for the first time. The national event works to promote water safety.

Abraham Celaya, Aquatics Supervisor for the city of Las Cruces, says he decided to bring the event to Las Cruces after participating in the event in El Paso.

“First and foremost to bring attention about water safety to the general public,” Celaya said. “It’s a way of introducing people to bringing their children to swim lessons and taking away that safety factor and teaching them that this is an essential skill that maybe your kids should have.”

Drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death in children, and Celaya says teaching children to swim properly can help to ensure their safety.

“I know that we’re in the desert,” Celaya said. “And we don’t usually think about water, right. Rarely do accidents happen in public pools it’s mostly in home pools because a lot of times, parents put a pool in their home, and their like it’s for fun. But, there’s risks involved and when children aren’t taught how to swim that risk is even more magnified.”

He says the younger a child can learn to swim the better.

“It’s easier to teach the younger kids,” Celaya said. “Lifeguards can tell you, or swim instructors can tell you that once you bring in adults the fear is there. It’s already there and to try to get rid of that fear is sometimes very difficult. Children as less prone to the fear, and so there like ‘it’s water let’s jump in,’ and that’s what you can try to build on. Ok, yeah it’s water, but it’s dangerous so lets try to get you to maneuver in the water, and you’ll be able to have fun for the rest of your life.”

He says there are many benefits to swimming for people of all ages.

“Swimming is a lifetime sport,” Celaya said. “You can start competitively at a young age and as we get older we get slower, some of us gain weight, things like that happen. But, you can continue to swim. It’s a low impact sport. The cardio is beneficial to anybody. Then you have other things that you can do in the water like aerobics, strength training, it goes across all ages and it’s beneficial to everybody.”

If you want to learn more about swimming lessons you can visit the Aquatic Center’s page at the city’s website las-cruces.org.
 

Samantha Sonner was a multimedia reporter for KRWG- TV/FM.