Pool Noodles Are A Plastic Threat To Public Pools
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AT THE PUBLIC POOL– The scene around the public swimming pool is unremarkable. Kids are laughing, splashing, and chasing each other with mini-subs like a scene from The Hunt For Red October. But suddenly, in the shallow end, little Susie starts thrashing about like a sea lion at the wrong end of a shark feast.
Little Susie is struggling for her life, because as you can see, wrapped around her fragile neck is a not-so-innocent plastic play-toy known as a pool noodle.
The pool noodle, which looks like a long flexible foam strand of spaghetti, was invented as a playful water toy. But much like lawn darts, archery kits, and acid-filled Super Soakers, pool noodles are about as safe as cyanide-flavoured Kool-Aid.
They look innocent enough when they’re dry, but toss one in a pool, and it will float around like a brightly-coloured watersnake looking for prey. And like the mallard duck who gets its head caught in a plastic 6-pack holder, a child is defenseless against the flexible constricting coils of a pool noodle. The more the kid struggles, the tighter the foamy knot becomes. Soon the plastic garrotte is tighter than a twist-tie on a bag of bread, blocking the child’s airway. Before you know it, the pool noodle has taken another victim.
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| The pool noodle (top left) is no less dangerous than a sea snake. |
So why do we allow these pernicious pool toys into the water? How many children must be choked or drowned before something is done? We might as well let our sons and daughters play with anacondas.
Many of these aquatic accidents could be prevented, but parents are too busy suntanning to keep their eyes on their frolicking children, and lifeguards have their attentions too focused on breasts and bikini lines to notice the occasional thrashing sounds of a strangling youth. It only takes is a second for a child’s throat to become entangled in the deadly grip of a pool noodle.
If we aren’t going to ban these deadly snake-like toys, then we should at least bring an awareness of these plastic pythons that are just waiting to wrap themselves around the neck of a vulnerable young swimmer. Perhaps prevention is the key. We could fasten thick iron bands to the children’s necks to protect them while they swim, or equip them with sharp boxcutter knives so that they could cut themselves free of the soft spongy grasp of the pool noodle.
This story about pool noodles is brought to you by The Toque,
the world leader in pool parody, swimming satire, and other aquatic humor.
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