A World Record was attempted today at the Muskegon Heights High School Pool! Yes, there were a few other locations around the planet for this to be taking place too, because when you are out to set a World Record, participation is key...and if it involves something that pretty much everyone around a coastal town should know....well, it's time to bring in the big guns...and Holly Alway is the biggest when it comes to injury prevention and safety at Trinity Health in Muskegon!
While we might not have been able to set a record right here in town ourselves, the idea came about to sync up events like we had in Muskegon Heights today with other groups around the world to work in unison to teach young and old the basics around water and how to do the simple stuff like float, tread and immerse your face. If you can imagine this, a survey done a short while ago found that 40% of those asked have never had any formal swimming training in Muskegon. Can you imagine the idea of all of this water around us and no instruction on how to properly take care of yourself in it?
The idea of breaking a world record is a fun way to motivate kids and families to take that first splash, but the long term idea is to make an introduction to them and them move them along to more advanced classes that will help them utilize water safely and effectively and over time, be able to advance their use of water to things like powered and nonpowered water craft and more. Our next big kayak fan might have just hit the water today in the Heights pool! We're all about getting more people out being healthy, happy and seeing that with a little knowledge and training, there's a lot more to the world than they imagined. It might be wet, but that's what towels are for.
Trinity Health is behind the event here. Why? Hey, to keep people out of the ER or Urgent Care is an idea that's sticking around. An ounce of education and prevention goes so much further than having to try and fix what went wrong, and to also add an element of fun participating in a world record attempt and meet some folks who are just getting the hang of this whole swimming thing too....it can't be a bad community building thing.
Holly joined me as people were filing in to take the plunge and we grabbed a little footage of the action, take a look.
While the pool might not have been overly packed at Muskegon Heights today, the quest was worldwide. If a World Record was made, great...but...if one kid learned enough today to prevent a water emergency or drowning, then we did the right thing in Muskegon today...and ya know, we got to get in the pool to do it! Our special thanks to our great sponsor Trinity Health for having us out today and to the great kids and families who let us get a peek of the educational fun.
