Posted: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:00 AM - 15,013 Readers
By: Farzad Mashhood
With the Fourth of July weekend coming up, many people will be heading outside and to the lakes to cool off.
The National Weather Service is predicting a sunny weekend with temperatures in the upper 90s. Officials are warning of risks from drowning, extreme heat and fire.
Most drowning victims are people who could not swim well or at all, officials said.
"Nobody should jump into the lake if they don't know how to swim. That's clearly a bad idea," said Dr. Pat Crocker, chief of emergency medicine at Dell Children's Medical Center.
This year, the City of Austin is on pace with 2010 for drowning deaths. All four people who drowned in Austin this year were adults.
Parents should supervise their children at all times, Crocker said, as a child could sink without making a noise.
"Most people have this idea in their heads that they'll just yell for help and splash when they're drowning. The reality with a child is that they'll just slip under the water without making any noise, and they'll inhale water and drown," Crocker said.
If you start to have trouble in the water, Crocker said, stay calm, rotate onto your back and gently kick your legs. Then yell for help.
For adults, Crocker added that swimming alone, having too much to drink and being unaware of the uneven lake bottoms are additional risks.
"The lake is not a swimming pool," said Don Brent, the chief of public safety for the Lower Colorado River Authority.
Brent, who oversees one of the four agencies that patrol Lake Travis, noted that there are no lifeguards and that the lake floor is not level. Lake Travis is flooded Hill Country, so the lake floor matches the contour of the hills, Brent said.
"People can go from waist deep to 20 feet of water in just a step or two," said LCRA spokeswoman Clara Tuma.
Swimming is legal in Lake Travis and parts of Lake Austin, but it is outlawed in Lady Bird Lake.
Personal watercraft will be banned on Lake Austin on July 4, police announced Thursday; only boats will be allowed.
Prolonged heat exposure is another danger; experts advise wearing light-colored clothing and a hat and drinking plenty of water.
Sunblock is also important, even for people with darker skin, said Tareka Wheeler, the coordinator of Safe Kids Austin, a nonprofit organization that aims to reduce accidental injuries to children.
Parents should never leave their children in a vehicle, as the interior of a car can quickly get up to 19 degrees hotter, Wheeler said. In Austin, two children have died from being left in cars this year .
Crocker said the heat can also hurt the elderly; he said to check in with them at least once a day either in person or on the phone.
"The body absorbs heat for days and days in a row, and this kind of heatstroke can be tricky because it's not an acute event," Crocker said. "It's an accumulation of heat."
So if an elderly person seems disoriented, they might need to cool off; Crocker suggests going somewhere air-conditioned, such as a mall.
Most of Central Texas has banned the use of fireworks because of the drought; Wheeler said parents should never let children handle or light them, even sparklers. She also advised adults to never leave an outdoor grill unattended and keep children at least three feet away.
Because of the fire danger, Austin has banned charcoal grilling in city parks.
