DEATHS FROM DROWNING

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28267, 3 May 1957, Page 12

DEATHS FROM DROWNING

Summer’s Toll 102 (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 2. Summer swimming this season took 15 more lives than last season, according to statistics released by the secretary of the National Water Safety Committee (Mr S. V. Higgins). Drownings between November 1 last year and April 30 this year caused 102 deaths against 87 in the 1955-56 swimming season. The most susceptible age groups to drowning were children under five years (18 deaths) and adults between 20 and 30 (21 deaths). Another 16 children drowned this season were in the five to 10year age group, and seven were aged between 10 and 15. There were 15 drownings of adults between 30 and 40, five between 40 and 50, two between 50 and 60, and six between 60 and 70. Rivers headed the list of locations of drownings, accounting for 36 deaths. Mishaps in public baths caused 22 of the season's drownings, and drownings in streams, creeks, lagoons, tanks and reservoirs, water troughs, pools, open drains and ditenes, accounted for another 20. There were eight drownings in harbours, 17 deaths resulting from boating accidents, two caused through fishing eff rocks, 15 drownings in - the open sea or beaches, and one drowning in a waterhole. Drownings last month took eight lives, three of them children under five.’