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 Keeping your children and pets safe by the water
Why would you want to live with a Turtle, I am no expert on Turtles but to my understanding they smell, they’re not very good at walking and most of all they BITE. The other thing about Turtles is you couldn’t sit down to watch that Saturday night weepy armed with a packet of tissues in one hand, glass of wine in the other and a cute and cuddly Turtle on your lap just doesn’t seem to have that romantic feel to it.
Well let me tell you that the Turtle I am talking about could save your child’s life.
No it is not a Baywatch Turtle, although a Turtle in a red leotard running down the beach could appeal to some people. No this Turtle is a Drowning Protection Device.
Now I know what you're thinking, what has a Turtle got to do with drowning? Well I will tell you.
The Safety Turtle was the brainchild of Bob Lyons who in 1998 invented an idea and this idea was a “wireless alert” system, which would set off an audible alarm at a base station the moment a child fell into any form of fresh water. Now Bob invented the idea of the alarm but the problem he had was how to get kids to wear a device with out feeling stupid. Well that is where Scott Gibson of Gibson Product Design came in, he had the idea of enclosing the sensing device in a cute looking Turtle and attach it to a child’s wrist with a special wrist strap and key to stop those little child’s fingers from prying the Turtle off their wrists. The other thing Scott did was to make the Turtles different colours so that if you had a red Turtle and your neighbour had a blue Turtle, your Turtle on getting wet wouldn’t set of his base station alarm and visa versa.
Now the reason Bob Lyons invented this unique device is that all around the world to many children drown or have near drowning accidents and as a parent he was keen to use his innovation skills to reduce the risk of drowning and increase your chances of saving your child’s life. He once said “People think they’re keeping an eye on their kids, but it’s not adequate. Managing risk requires a layer-of-protection approach.”
So what is a “layer-of-protection approach”?
Well a layer-of-protection approach is to have senses, we all have them and as such we should all use them to safeguard our children.
The first sense is your eye’s and supervision is the most important part of looking after your children, this however should not be “Boot Camp” style, kids see water as fun and although they should be taught and understand the dangers of water, kids should not be afraid of water.
The next sense is hearing and noise or the lack of noise. People call drowning the “silent killer” because most often kids make no noise, they don’t shout or scream. So you should be just as aware of no noise as to screams and shouts.
The third sense is the Safety Turtle and the reason this is a sense is that not like other alarms, the Safety Turtle is physical attached to the child, so where your child goes the Safety Turtle follows.
Now the other great thing about the Safety Turtle is that it is fully transportable, you can take the Safety Turtle and the base station wherever you go, in a boat on a river or canal as an Overboard Alarm, attach it to your child’s life jacket or wrist and it will tell you the moment your child falls overboard. Walking by the lakes or rivers, the Safety Turtle can come with a battery pack which once fully charged lasts up to 10 hours, you can also take it any where in Europe, the villa with that lovely swimming pool, or your neighbours villa with that even lovelier swimming pool, the Safety Turtle has a range of 60mtrs that’s 200 feet, which will safeguard your children from yours or your neighbours pool.
The last thing to tell you is that the Turtle can not just protect your children it can also protect you family pet, your nice new puppy that loves jumping into the water and you lifting it out again, just so it can jump in again. Well when you go inside that nice little puppy jumps in again, but this time your not there, so your puppy swims round and round until eventually…
Attach a Turtle to your pets collar and this time when you're pet jumps in and your inside reading the paper or making the tea you will be immediate alerted to the danger and will be able to pluck him out.
Finally, remember the Safety Turtle is not a toy and it is not certainly a gadget, the Safety Turtle is a life saving device and with Bob Lyon’s selling over 20,000 a year around the world through his company “Terrapin Communication” the Safety Turtle has gone a long way in reducing drowning and near drowning incidents.
Now after all that information you may like to know where you can find out more about the Safety Turtle and where to buy this State-of-the-art device. Well you can go to either www.safewateralarms.co.uk who is the UK supplier or you can go to www.safetyturtle.com who is the manufacture of the Safety Turtle.
So which Turtle do you want to live with, the one that bites or the one that safeguards your children?
Written by Paul McHugh
22/9/05
Many thanks to Paul for writing this informative article
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