AMERICAN HEALTH MAGAZINE

A Turn for the Better

To Marie and John Wright, terror has a specific date: November 16th, 1980. That was the day their 11-month-old son, Chad, disappeared. After frantically searching their Anaheim, Calif. Home, the Wrights found their son floating in their backyard pool. Fortunately Chad was floating on his back, a survival technique he’d learned at the Watersafe Swim School.

“Too many infants are taught to love the water without respecting it,” says Ginny Flahive, the owner of the California school, which has branches in Seal Beach and Orange Park Acres. In fact nearly 600 babies drown each year in the U.S. alone. Over the past 20 years, Flahive has shown some 10,000 infants how to turn and float on their backs, which is safer than doing the dog paddle. (The technique is shown above by Watersafe instructor Lisa Morey.)

“I was astonished to see such small children swimming without any fear,” says Los Angeles-based photographer Eric Sander, who photographed the swim school for Life magazine.

These days 16-year-old Chad Wright is a prized member of his local swim team, the Anaheim Aquatic Association. No surprise, perhaps, that his favorite even is the backstroke.

-Rebecca Norris