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Swim Program Teaches Infants To Save Themselves

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Too often summer fun can turn tragic when a young child wanders off, falls into a pool or lake and drowns.

There's an amazing program that can give parents a little more peace of mind.

The program teaches children as young six months old to save themselves from drowning.

During a supervised demonstration, a toddler is able to swim to the surface, turn on his back and float.

He does it for five minutes while calling out for help.

Babies and toddlers in Massachusetts and across the country are learning the life-saving technique through a program called Infant Swimming Resources or ISR.

Using hand signals, 8-month-old Georgia's instructor, Barbara Gordon, has taught Georgia when to take a breath.

"She uses her legs to kick her around so she's face up," Gordon explained. "She uses her arms and turns her head, and when she comes up she gets a nice breath of air and then she's able to float."

Older children not only learn to float, but to swim to the edge of the pool.

The course consists of intense 15-minute lessons every day for four to six weeks.

But for Georgia's mom, who witnessed a tragic accident, it's well worth it.

"It was traumatic watching the mother running up the beach with her child limp in her arms," Suzanne Smith said. "It was horrible. So I would never want anything to happen to my children."

One of the first lessons the parents are taught is these classes are not a substitute for safety measures such as pool fences, alarms, and most important -- close adult supervision.

Since the program began in 1966, more than 160,000 children have learned the ISR method. The company says it knows of nearly 800 instances where children have saved themselves.

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