February has been a busy month with swimming lessons recommencing with approximately 100 children being enrolled each week.

School swimming also recommenced with Wodonga West Primary School, Melrose Primary School, Chiltern Primary School and Victory Lutheran College joining us for their week of water safety and swimming. We also practiced our emergency evacuation procedures with the swimming students during whistle week. The report below just shows how vital it is to practice water safety skills to reduce the number of drownings.

Victorian Drowning Report 2018/2019
The new Victorian Drowning Report has been launched.

Tragically, 56 people in Victoria lost their lives to drowning this year. It was the state’s highest annual drowning toll in more than two decades and 17 more than the average number of drowning incidents in Victoria over the past 10 years (2008/09-2017/18). This figure represents a significant rise in the number of families coming home from a day on or around the water to live with the unfathomable reality of a lost loved one. The fatal drowning rate stands out for being the highest in 14 years; 38% higher than last year and a 29% increase on the 10-year average. – Life Saving Victoria CEO, Dr Nigel Taylor.

Some of the trends in 2018/19 include

• 18% of drowning deaths in 2018/19 were of people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
• Unintentional water entry (including slips/trips/falls and attempting a rescue) accounted for 46% (26) of fatal drowning incidents this year. This is double that of the past decade with an average of 13 (33%).
• Males continue to be over represented in the drowning statistics and are four times more likely to drown than females.