During the last few weeks of hot weather, many people have turned to backyard pools for relief.
That's what five-year-old Brayden Shemtov did but it gave him a lesson in life he won't ever forget. Brayden almost drowned.
Now, Brayden is learning to swim by taking the Lifesaving Society’s Swim to Survive program. He'll learn how to react if he falls into deep water, how to tread water, and how to swim. So far he loves it.
“I'm having fun,” he says, “but sometimes when you sink it's not really fun.”
Brayden's "sinking" experience could have cost him his life says his Swim to Survive instructor Robert Northcott.
“He had a near-death experience with water and he's right back in there and that's fantastic,” Northcott says.
A few weeks ago Brayden was at a pool party at a friend’s house. Not knowing how to swim, his mother made him wear his lifejacket then went to run some errands. A short time later Judith Shemtov's phone rang.
“I got this call that something had happened and that they called an ambulance,” she says. “I didn't know all the details until I got there. It was terrifying.”
Brayden had taken his lifejacket off and mistakenly went into the deep end of the pool and panicked.
“Was it scary?” Brayden says. “Just the sinking part.”
Brayden doesn't remember what happened next.
“Well I went unconscious,” he says.
A family friend jumped into the water and performed CPR on him. Paramedics arrived and took Brayden to the hospital where they kept him overnight.
“Brayden is a lucky five year old,” says Simcoe County paramedic supervisor Greg Bruce. “Citizen CPR on scene before the paramedics arrived gave him a chance to live the rest of his life.”
Brayden's mother says the Swim to Survive program is invaluable and has helped Brayden and his family deal with a day they'll never forget.
“He's gotten over a lot of his fears,” says his mother. “The first week he started lessons he didn't want to put his head underwater. Now he's swimming away and I feel so proud and happy.”
