This is the story of 6 year old Freja, who was playing by the pool and fell in, fully clothed. Her mom was there thankfully, and Freja rescued herself faster than her momma could get to her. Great job Freja!
Story told by mom:
We were at my neighbors house, it was only 61 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Freja was riding around in the car (which is sitting beside the pool in the picture). She somehow ended up "driving" the car into the pool. Yes, she was inside the car when she fell in the pool. I had just looked at my phone to reply to a text and out of the corner of my eye I saw the car in the pool, I barely heard a splash. I ran to the pool and by the time I got to the edge of the pool, Freja had managed to swim out of the car to the Baja step and was out of the pool. She was scared and had told me she had been stuck in the car for a moment.
I took off her clothes, jacket, school clothes, boots, and I was shocked by how heavy they were. I am so thankful that Freja has taken ISR lessons along with ISR refresher lessons.
She was able to problem solve to get herself out of the car and swim herself to safety. I never ever thought that my child would fall in a pool especially when we were not swimming.
-Darci
Thank you for sharing your story! We are very proud of Freja for using her self-rescue skills to find her way out of a potentially deadly situation.
Parents: Please check out our Prevention page to learn the multiple layers of protection you can put in place to protect your child from drowning. There are multiple layers in place because one layer (sometimes 2 or 3) are bound to break. We cannot depend on one layer to keep children safe around water. This child used her ability to rollback and float, and swim to the edge independently to save her life. And we are incredibly proud of her! However, even a skilled child may bump their head on entry to the pool. Kids will find their way to a water source, even when we (or they) are not planning on it.