Troubled Waters

It's a terrifying thought, but this year on average, one little boy or girl has drowned each and every week.

In fact, drowning is the number one preventable killer of toddlers in Australia.

And for parents, the really scary thing is it can happen so quickly, so quietly. One minute, the child's there happily playing, the next, they're gone.

They're at the bottom of the pool. So with summer on the way, how can we protect our children? First of all check your pool fence, learn CPR and most importantly of all, supervise your kids.

Don't take your eyes off them for a second.

Story Contacts:

Hannah's Foundation

Infant Swimming Resource

INTRODUCTION - TARA BROWN: It's a terrifying thought, but this year, on average, one little boy or girl has drowned each and every week. In fact, drowning is the number one preventable killer of toddlers in Australia. And for parents the really scary thing is it can happen so quickly, so quietly. One minute the child is there happily playing the next they're gone. They're at the bottom of the pool. So with summer on the way how can we protect our children? First of all check your pool fence, learn CPR and most importantly of all supervise your kids. Don't take your eyes off them for a second.

STORY - TARA BROWN: At first glance it's distressing, but in this Sydney back-yard swimming pool toddlers are learning to drown. And it may just save their lives. It's called ISR, the infant swimming resource, and while it is confronting to watch, instructors Richard and Rachelle Beesley make no apologies.

RACHELLE BEESLEY: Every time I see a child, especially a baby, roll over and float for the first time, I cry. It's just amazing to see.

TARA BROWN: Truth be known, there's a lot of crying here. Many of these littlies don't seem too happy with their survival training. ISR is an intensive 8-week course and in that time, whether they like it or not, children are taught to instinctively get out of trouble by swimming to the side or, if it's too far away, floating on their back until help arrives. It's controversial, some might even say cruel, but it is claimed this method will stop toddler drownings. So if in the process they are terrified, that's OK?

RACHELLE BEESLEY: Well, they're crying for a number of reasons. Most people will say to us, "Look I prefer to hear my child cry for a couple of weeks in lessons "than for me to never hear them cry ever again."

TARA BROWN: In the last year, 40 children under 14 drowned, and there can be no more graphic example of how quickly and quietly it can occur than beautiful Queensland toddler, Hannah Plint.

AMBULANCE TAPE: What is the exact address of your emergency? My daughter has fallen in the pool, I'm doing CPR, can you help me? What is your address?

TARA BROWN: This is excruciating to listen to. Hannah's mum's frantic call for help after she found her daughter in the backyard pool.

AMBULANCE TAPE: How old is she? She's two. Oh, please help me. I am. Is she conscious? No. Is she breathing? No. OK.

TARA BROWN: Hannah was two and a half when she died in October last year. Something in her parents, Andrew and Kat, died that day too.

KAT PLINT: I was yelling at her saying, "C'mon Baby, c'mon, "you've got to breathe, you've got to breathe," and then her eyes started rolling back. I knew she was alive when I pulled her from the pool but I just couldn't get her airways clear. And then she died in my arms, and no parent should have to go through that, ever.

TARA BROWN: Kat Plint spends her time wondering the whys and what-ifs of that cruel day. It all happened so fast. Harry, her youngest, was unwell and needed his nappy changed. Hannah, impatient and independent headed outside. In the time it took for Kat to follow, Hannah used a chair to open the pool gate.

KAT PLINT: The last time I saw her bare bum walking out the door was when I was actually changing Harry's nappy and the next time I saw her she was floating naked in the pool.

TARA BROWN: Tragically, stories like Hannah Plint's are all too common. And here's another frightening fact - a toddler can drown in water as shallow as 5cm. That means bath tubs and buckets are as dangerous as creeks, rivers and dams. But of course it's the backyard swimming pool, that longed-for-and-loved Australian status symbol, where most toddler drownings occur. So how to stop the deaths? The Beesley's controversial, cruel-to-be-kind method... ..or this less-traumatic, more-fun approach?

LAURIE LAWRENCE: Eight days old. It's time for the baby to have a swim, OK? Eight days old, c'mon boys, c'mon Noah.

TARA BROWN: Legendary swim coach Laurie Lawrence has always been a bit of a larrikin... ..but in the last 30 years he has also taught thousands of Australian kids how to be safe in the water.

LAURIE LAWRENCE: Noah is eight days old. We want to teach him a verbal trigger so that later on we will be able to submerge him. It's, "Noah? Ready, go."

TARA BROWN: Oh, are you alright there, Noah?

LAURIE LAWRENCE: Is he alright? Of course he's alright.

TARA BROWN: Within four months, little Noah will graduate to the big pool with the other kids. Laurie says while his lessons are fun, child's play for the kids, they are deadly serious for their parents because in Australia, on average, one child drowns every week.

LAURIE LAWRENCE: It's like a personal kick in the guts, you know, you see it and you say "Why didn't I do enough?" So I see it as a competition to try to get zero preschool drownings in this country and that would be absolutely fantastic.

TARA BROWN: To achieve that, he has got a national anti-drowning campaign called Kids Alive. And you can't have a chat with Laurie without hearing his slogan - 'Kids alive do the five!' LAURIE LAWRENCE: Do the five - fence the pool, shut the gate, teach your kids to swim - it's great, supervise, watch your mate and learn how to resuscitate.

TARA BROWN: Are these lessons about teaching them to swim or keeping them safe?

LAURIE LAWRENCE: It's both. By learning to swim early you can teach them to save themselves. They can still drown, but if something untoward was to happen, if they were to fall in somewhere, at least they have some skills where they are likely to get back to the side to save themselves. Otherwise, they've got no chance.

TARA BROWN: There is no doubt Laurie's message is getting through. As younger and younger kids join swim classes, more and more have been saved. But some say teaching kids to swim at such an early age could actually be giving them a false sense of water security. Is there any chance swimming lessons are making kids and their parents complacent?

LAURIE LAWRENCE: There is a risk of children becoming over confident, but I hope not. I don't think so.

TARA BROWN: Fear is the key at the Infant Swimming Resource classes. Some of the kids in your class don't look like they're having fun?

RACHELLE BEESLEY: No, they're not having fun because we're pushing them. OK, maybe I shouldn't say "Not having fun." Our program is not about having fun.

TARA BROWN: The hope is children will see pools as places of danger. This toddler-survival training is new in Australia, but in America, it has been taught for more than 40 years. Children as young as six months saving themselves from simulated drownings.

RACHELLE BEESLEY: There has been over 175,000 kids trained in the ISR program and not one of those children has ever drowned.

TARA BROWN: It sounds like a pretty good statistic.

RACHELLE BEESLEY: It's bloody good. Can I say that?

LAURIE LAWRENCE: And I can claim, too, that of all the kids that I've taught to swim, not one has drowned as well. We can all go back arguing backwards and forwards. I think it's just a philosophy thing, and my philosophy is that kids should learn to swim in a happy, loving environment where they can enjoy it, and they shouldn't be traumatised or forced to do it.

TARA BROWN: But whichever method you favour, equipping kids with swimming skills is just one barrier to drowning. Adequate, compliant fencing is another, as grieving parents Cam and Monica Harris know too well.

CAM HARRIS: I walked out the gate, closed the gate.

TARA BROWN: When the Harrises rented this home in Melbourne six months ago, they assumed the pool fence was safe and sound, well able to keep out their two toddlers. It was just over a month ago that Monica's attention was on 15-month-old Samantha. In those few seconds, 3.5-year-old Lauren somehow managed to get into the pool. MONICA HARRIS: This is pretty much where I found her. And we found the, what's it called? The cleaning net, the skimmer. We found it in the pool.

CAM HARRIS: She may have seen us cleaning the pool and she's gone to help Mum and Dad.

MONICA HARRIS: I remember calling Cameron as well, "Just come home, come home quick, Lauren's drowned," and let him go and I just kept working on her until the paramedics arrived.

CAM HARRIS: I walked in, I saw the guys, they were performing CPR and pumping up and down on her body, and it was... But I touched, I touched Lauren a number of times and I went in and I told her "I love you Darling, Daddy loves you," and I gave her whatever energy I could but I will never forget. I don't know how my wife Monica, I don't know how... ..the strength she had to to get her out of the pool and the trauma she has gone through and those images that are etched in her mind, but I certainly have horrible images that I will live with forever. They won't go away.

TARA BROWN: So I guess this area of the BBQ was a problem, according to council?

CAM HARRIS: According to council this was raised as a defect, and not meeting Australian Standards.

TARA BROWN: In the days since Lauren's death, closer inspections have identified more than 10 serious flaws in the fence - a fence the family thought was perfectly safe. Understandably, Cam and Monica are confused and angry.

MONICA HARRIS: Angry at life, angry at the situation. Angry at myself, sometimes, for being away for that short period of time.

CAM HARRIS: There have been laws and regulations around pools and pool safety fences, that I, as far as anger, I'm angry that this is still happening.

TARA BROWN: Back in Laidley, west of Brisbane, Kat and Andrew Plint are struggling with their sorrow, trying to remember the happy moments in Hannah's short life. Their front yard has become Hannah's flower garden. But, the back yard, even though the pool's been taken away, it is a no-go zone for Kat and a constant reminder of the stigma she still feels.

KAT PLINT: I struggle to go out in public, it's quite difficult.

TARA BROWN: So is a part of you assuming that people will judge you?

KAT PLINT: Mmm. I was blamed the night that Hannah died.

ANDREW PLINT: They just made the assumption that because it happened, we'd done something wrong.

TARA BROWN: Does any part of you blame yourselves?

KAT PLINT: Well, every day. Hannah died on my watch. And as a mum, you're supposed to protect your kids, but I couldn't be in two places at once.

TARA BROWN: Hannah's death has led to Hannah's Foundation, set up by her parents to remember her and every other young Australian who has drowned. But as Laurie Lawrence and all the other swimming and survival instructors will tell you, one toddler drowning is one too many.

LAURIE LAWRENCE: I'm not trying to make Olympic champions out of them, that's not the point. The point is, if they learn to swim early all these other benefits will happen, and it will open up a whole new world of wonder. Any water sport opens up for them.

TARA BROWN: And it might just save their life?

LAURIE LAWRENCE: That's more important, it might just save their life.