KeninAZ
Prescott, AZ
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Joined: 06/22/2002
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I went fishing yesterday at a local lake.
About 9 AM a group of about 20 or so kids shows up with two very young adults (kids in my opinion). The kids they were supervising aged 7-11 I am guessing.
They had a bunch of canoes that had been placed in the lake by others earlier in the morning for their use.
I watched the two "adults", and I use that term very loosely, give the kids the standard life jackets and oars. It was quite obvious that these kids had never been in a canoe before.
I watched the one counselor start placing kids into canoes 3 at a time and just watched noting that about 6 of the kids did not have the strap for the life vest around them, in other words it was just over their heads was all.
As the kids the next group started to get into the canoe I could not keep my mount shut any longer. I saw that 2 of the 3 did not have the vest secured. If they fell over the vests would slip right over their necks!
Please check your summer camp's operation out before you send you kids to someone like this!
I told the kids that was boarding these kids to fasten those vests or get them out of the boats now! It's a violation of the rules at the lake they were at and clearly posted so that all under 12 must have vest on properly when a boat is moving.
I had to remind that counselor in 3 more cases as he boarded these kids and sent them out onto the 15 acre lake to get those vests fastened before they went on the boats!
I will note that this lake is a very deep lake and nobody from the group was on the water with these kids at all!
I won't say the name of the outfit running the day camp buy you all know the organization's name.
This particular group did not care about the kids saftey and was very poorly trained.
Do they care about the kids? I doubt it. If there is a wrongful death the main group which is non profit has no money and the local chapter just fades away. The counselors were not old enough to have any money either so suing them is out.
The main question here is would you even want to think about the death of a child from careless behavior like this?
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sharrlan
chino,ca
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Joined: 05/07/2004
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Like anything else, there are good day camps and there are bad. Was there a ranger that you could have spoken to?
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KeninAZ
Prescott, AZ
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Joined: 06/22/2002
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No, this is a park within the national forest that is controlled by the city.
The only person is a maintenance man who you don't see really often and he has less authority than I do.
Those kids were not going out the way they were and I made that clear.
I will also add that I have emailed the group that sent this outfit to the lake so unprepared with my opinions of their operation.
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KeninAZ
Prescott, AZ
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Joined: 06/22/2002
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I did get a reply from the outfit that runs it and said they would retrain the counselors involved in this.
Today I was at the lake again the the same group was there with much older counselors and things were fine.
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sharrlan
chino,ca
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Joined: 05/07/2004
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Good to know that you made a difference in the way things are done.
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campin4kids
Indiana
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Joined: 05/07/2007
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Good job KeninAZ, You may have saved a life, that day or a day in the future.
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KeninAZ
Prescott, AZ
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Joined: 06/22/2002
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I hoped I helped someone anyway.
I would hate to think of of kid getting drowned.
With nobody out there on the lake with these inexperienced kids in the canoes it would have only taken a few seconds for one to tip over and for the kid to slip out of the improperly fastened vest.
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