Frightening drowning statistics have been revealed on the eve of the Australian summer.
The National Drowning Report 2024, released last week, revealed that there were 323 drowning deaths across Australia in the past 12 months – up 14 per cent from last year, and up 16 per cent on the 10-year average.
With greater access to the water in Penrith than ever before via Penrith Beach, experts are emphasising that no one should be complacent around water.
Though 46 per cent of these drowning deaths occurred in coastal locations, 34 per cent were in inland water locations like rivers and lakes, with another 11 per cent taking place in swimming pools.
Nepean Aquatic Centre’s Julie Sheldrake said this indicates that the threat is closer to home than you might think.
“I think it’s really important to bring it back to local, and to realise that this can actually happen to anybody,” she said.
For Sheldrake, one of the most concerning aspects of the report was around children aged five to 14, who represented five per cent of drowning cases in the report – a 40 per cent increase compared to the 10-year average.
Sheldrake said this was believed to be caused by the pandemic, which saw children unable to engage in swimming lessons.
“COVID was around four or five years ago, and it was estimated at the time that over a million lessons were missed at swim schools around Australia during the period,” she said.
“Now, we’re seeing that five- to 14-year-old age group in real danger.”
On the flip side, there was a 25 per cent decrease on the 10-year average for those aged zero to four.
“It’s these babies that were born in COVID, many of them, and their first structured activity probably was swimming lessons, probably their first activity that parents felt safe taking them to was swimming lessons,” she said.
For Sheldrake, this only solidifies the importance of getting your kids into swimming lessons, no matter how old they are.
“I would definitely say that swimming lessons are important, and I would actually say swimming lessons for all ages – in the younger children so that we don’t see a repeat when they become five to 14, and I would encourage all parents with five to 14-year-olds to get their children into swimming lessons and make sure they’re hitting those National Swimming and Water Safety Framework milestones and benchmarks,” she said.
And this doesn’t stop at age 14, with over 25 per cent of drowning deaths in the last year made up of people aged over 65 – a 44 per cent increase on the 10-year average – and 83 people who were born overseas.
“We do run an adult program for older people, and a lot of those people are people who were born overseas,” she said.
Sheldrake added that there are a few more things you can do to ensure everyone stays safe around the water.
“There’s fences and barriers and gates, we need to make sure that pools are well fenced off, supervision is key, a lot of these drowning deaths could have been prevented through better supervision, and learning CPR,” she said.
“We’re one of the countries in the world that has the lowest rates of CPR education and people actually going and renewing annually, and I really think it takes many annual renewals for people to be confident and competent to respond.”
Cassidy Pearce
Cassidy Pearce is a news and entertainment journalist with The Western Weekender. A graduate of the University of Technology Sydney, she has previously worked with Good Morning Macarthur and joined the Weekender in 2022.