Featured on CNN: Water Safety and Clarion Safety Signs

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta warns about shallow water blackout and interviews Rhonda Milner, MD, Chairman/CEO of ShallowWaterBlackoutPrevention.org, and water safety partner of Clarion. Clarion’s “No Long Breath Holding” poolside safety signs, which warn against the dangers of shallow water blackout, are featured throughout the news segment.

Featured on Good Morning America: Shallow Water Blackout and Clarion Safety Signs

ABC News’ Good Morning America reports on the dangers of shallow water blackout and interviews Tom Griffiths, one of the experts behind Clarion’s pool safety sign system. Clarion’s “No Long Breath Holding” safety signs are featured in the news segment.

Drowning Prevention: Raising Awareness of the Dangers of Breath-Holding

“The signage makes people wonder, ‘Why can’t I breath-hold’? Then they will start to understand, through education, how dangerous it is,” says Rhonda Milner.

Experts believe that a leading cause of swimming-related deaths is a phenomenon known as shallow water blackout. What happens is a person who is underwater passes out without warning after extreme, prolonged breath-holding preceded by hyperventilation. In effect, the person’s brain says it doesn’t need oxygen and they become unconscious and drown. Shallow water blackout is a sudden, silent killer. Parents and lifeguards supervising pools often fail to detect any danger or crisis under the water until it’s too late. Oftentimes people are alone when they practice long breath holding while swimming laps or lying still at the bottom of a pool. The real crisis is that people are just not aware of the dangers associated with long breath-holding.

Clarion is a proud water safety partner of the Shallow Water Blackout Prevention group, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness of shallow water blackout. The group was established by Rhonda Milner in 2011 following the death of her twenty-five year old son, Whitner. Whitner was an avid swimmer who had begun to practice breath-holding to increase his free-diving time because of an interest in spear fishing. One evening, in preparation for an upcoming spear fishing event, he practiced long breath-holding in the family’s backyard pool and passed out underwater and drowned.

Because shallow water blackout most often occurs due to lack of knowledge of the dangers of breath-holding, the Shallow Water Blackout Prevention group aims to increase awareness of this life-threatening practice so fewer people die as a result of this phenomenon.

An important prevention step advocated by the Shallow Water Blackout Prevention group is the posting of Clarion “No Long Breath Holding” signs at pool-side. These signs are an integral part of the Clarion pool safety sign system.

Looking for More Information on Shallow Water Blackout Prevention Signs?
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