Frightening photo proves kids should never wear BLUE swimwear – but can you spot the child in the pool?
A FRIGHTENING photo shows how vital it is for children to wear brightly coloured swimwear, with a child donning a blue swimsuit proving near impossible to spot.
The picture of what looks to be an empty outdoor swimming pool has, on closer inspection, a faint shadow in the right-hand corner.
The darker patch is a child wearing pale blue shorts swimming at the bottom of the pool – which was murky from sunscreen.
The photo, uploaded to Australian Facebook group CPR Kids and reported on by the Daily Mail, issues a stark warning to parents.
The Facebook group was run by registered nurses, one of whom, Nurse Sarah Hunstead, said it was “vital” to “actively supervise” kids and learn CPR.
The image had been shared more than 200 times and received hundreds of comments and likes since it was posted on Friday.
'That is so scary! I couldn't see the child at all,' one woman replied.
'Oh my god, how terrifying,' another said.
A third wrote: 'This makes me feel sick.'
Many concerned parents pointed out that brightly coloured swimwear was hard to come across when shopping for their children – particularly their boys.
“Would be great if you could tell the manufacturer of swim wear!” one wrote.
“Once kids get to 7yr it’s all blue/black/white.”
Others following the group vowed to dress their children exclusively in fluorescent, or neon swimwear, after seeing the worrying photo.
'All future swimwear is going to be hideous and fluoro,' one mum tagged her husband and wrote.
'HOW TERRIFYING'
Nurse and director of CPR Kids Sarah Hunstead told Daily Mail Australia it was imperative for parents to “actively supervise” their children if they were in or around the pool.
“When it comes to supervision, you always need to remember that even though there may be lots of people around, they're not necessarily looking at the kids,” she said.
“The "active" is what's important.
“That means you're not reading, you're not on your phone, you're not chatting to anyone else.”
A mother who had experienced a sobering incident beside a pool over the weekend, highlighted the silent, deadly nature of childhood drowning in the comments section of the photo.
She had been sitting by the edge of the pool watching her child play, she said, when a man seated nearby suddenly jumped into the water.
'He grabbed my child before I had even realised he was struggling,' she wrote.
'My child never made a sound. I was within arms reach and was distracted in thought.'
Official advice from Royal Life Saving Australia recommended that groups of adults allocated a designated 'pool watcher' when around kids playing in the water.
Their job would solely be to keep an eye on the children.
Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in children under five in Australia.
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