Safety in our Community - Citrus County Health Department

Safety Tips

Water Safety Floating Device ENJOY THE WATER, SAFELY
–Florida Department of Health recognizes May 24-30 as
Recreational Water Illness Prevention Week–

TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Department of Health (DOH) is highlighting National Recreational Water Illness Prevention Week to remind Floridians about healthy and safe swimming behaviors that should be practiced year-round. In addition, the observance helps to raise awareness about ways to prevent recreational water illnesses (RWIs) and injuries. The week before Memorial Day, May 24-30, is National Recreational Water Illness Prevention Week.

RWIs are illnesses spread by swallowing, breathing in vapors of, or having contact with contaminated water in swimming pools, water parks, spas, interactive fountains, lakes, rivers, or oceans. The best way to prevent RWIs is to keep germs out of the water.

Everyone can help create healthy swimming experiences. Follow these tips when swimming in a pool:

Don’t swallow pool water.
Practice good hygiene, which includes showering with soap before swimming and washing your hands after using the toilet or changing a child’s diaper.
Take children on bathroom breaks or check diapers often.
Don’t swim when you have diarrhea.
Change diapers in a bathroom or a diaper-changing area and not at poolside. Kid in pool

Follow these tips when swimming in fresh water lakes and rivers:

Avoid water-related activities in bodies of warm freshwater, hot springs, and thermally-polluted water such as water around power plants.
Avoid water-related activities in warm freshwater during periods of high water temperature and low water levels.
Hold the nose shut or use nose clips when taking part in water-related activities in bodies of warm freshwater such as lakes, rivers, or hot springs.
Avoid digging in or stirring up the sediment in shallow, warm freshwater areas.

Creating a safe environment is just as important as creating a healthy environment. Injuries at aquatics facilities can occur in or out of the water and are largely preventable. Everyone can help create a safe recreational water environment by practicing these tips:

Watch children at all times—they can drown in seconds and in silence and should not be left alone.
Don’t use air-filled swimming aids or toys in place of life jackets or life preservers.
Protect against sunburn by using a sunscreen with at least SPF 15 and both UVA and UVB protection, and re-apply it after swimming.
Swim with a buddy and select swimming sites that have lifeguards whenever possible.
Avoid drinking alcohol before or during swimming, boating or other water activities.
Adults should learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In the time it might take for paramedics to arrive, your CPR skills could make a difference in someone’s life. CPR performed by bystanders has been shown to improve outcomes in drowning victims.

Drowning is a quick and silent killer. In the time it takes to….…
…cross the room for a towel (10 seconds), a child in the bathtub can become submerged.
…answer the phone (2 minutes), that child can lose consciousness.
…sign for a package at your front door (4 to 6 minutes), a child submerged in the bathtub or pool can sustain permanent brain damage.

Drowning is still the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death to children ages 1 to 14,

taking more than 900 children’s lives each year.

For every child who drowns, four more are hospitalized for near-drowning; for every hospital admission, approximately four children are treated in hospital emergency rooms.

Fifteen percent of all 2,351 unintentional drowning deaths of toddlers ages 1-4 in the United States between 1999 and 2004 were Florida residents, more than any other state (CDC) A graph showing the percentage of drownings each year Florida 15%, California 14%, Texas 10%, All Other States 61%

Knowledge is a powerful tool for combating these tragedies. Knowing how and where children drown, as well as the concrete steps you can take to avoid danger, may make a life-and-death difference for your family.

Safe Kids Florida is a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations dedicated to preventing accidental injury. They advise parents and care givers to take precautions when supervising children. Following the tips below can help them in properly supervising children.

• Never leave children alone near water.
• Tell children never to run, push, or jump on others near water.
• Learn infant and child CPR.
• Children should always wear U.S. Coast Guard approved life jackets.
• Inflatable inner tubes and “water wings” are not safety devices.

• Keep toilet lids down.
• Keep doors to bathrooms and laundry rooms closed.
• Children in baby baths seats and rings must be within arm’s reach every second.
• Teach children to swim after age 4.
• Make sure children swim within designated swimming areas of rivers, lakes and oceans.

Twelve Health and Safety Tips for the Holidays

Florida DOT District 7 Community Traffic Safety Teams are pleased to offer this 6th edition of Recipes for the Road. This year we’ve extended our holiday recipes to include Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco De Mayo, 4th of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving as well as our traditional Christmas and New Year’s holidays we’ve always featured.

We hope you will find this booklet useful throughout the entire year. Also interspersed throughout this booklet are letters from families throughout our communities whose lives have been impacted by impaired drivers.

We hope their stories will touch your heart as they do ours. Our thanks to each restaurant that contributes to our booklet each year we couldn’t do it without you! We also extend our heartfelt thanks to those that work each day to enforce impaired driving laws and curb underage drinking in our communities. We extend our best wishes for each holiday and may we all work together to achieve the goal of zero fatalities on our roadways.

To view this year's edition, please click here