Living in a country that has a very ingrained water culture is double-edged.
On one hand, our childhoods and our children’s childhoods are populated with memories of beautiful sand and surf. However, this makes water safety and the threat of drowning also very real.
Nobody knows this more than Ky Hurst – lifesaver, Olympian and iron man, who since becoming dad to five-year-old Koa and eight-month-old baby Asha, is more vigilant than ever.
As a lifesaver, Ky has seen first-hand how quickly a situation can turn disastrous, and says when it comes to protecting and educating children against drowning, prevention is key.
“A lot of the drownings you don’t hear about either, they happen so fast,” he says speaking of the 291 drowning deaths that occurred in Australia from the first of July 2016 to the 30th of June 2017.
“It’s just alarming.”
Describing a situation when he was training at a local pool, Ky says it’s easy for a struggling child to be overlooked when there are many children about.
“There were lots of children in the pool swimming around, but no one saw him and he went under,” says Ky.
“I was just lucky that I saw him because he looked like he was struggling, so I asked him, pulled him out and he was perfectly fine, but seconds later, if I hadn’t have seen it, something much worse could have happened.”