You may find one of these towels on an area beach   photo courtesy preventable.ca

Prince George, BC – ‘Before you think only other swimmers drown, have a word with yourself’ – that’s the slogan emblazoned on beach towels being used by preventable.ca during this year’s summer drowning prevention campaign.

With the temperatures finally warm enough to make residents feel like taking a dip in area lakes, the non-profit group, in partnership with the Canadian Red Cross and BC Hydro, is urging British Columbians to take a moment and think about how they act in the water and ask themselves if they, or those they love, are at risk of drowning because of their behavior.

The statistics are not ‘all wet’:

• there are at least 60 deaths each year in BC due to drowning and water-transport related activities
• drowning is the leading cause of injury death for children aged 0-4 (Half of the children who drowned were alone unsupervised)
• for each toddler who dies from drowning, there are some 6-10 near-drowning cases which require hospitalization (Among the survivors of near-drowning, 20-percent sustain permanent brain damage)

Preventable.ca is a registered non-profit established as part of a province-wide effort, involving both government and private agencies, to significantly reduce the number and severity of preventable injuries in BC.