Salt Lake Telegram | 1949-10-01 | Page 4 | Weak Spot in Home Safety for Utah

, i Weak Spot in Home Safety for Utah , The director of home safety work for the National Safety council visited in Utah this week, holding' conferences with the members of the home safety diviaion of the Utah Safety council. The 'director is Thomas Fansler of Chicago. Chi-cago. , Mr. Fansler commended the Utah home safety division on Its program, which has repeatedly won national recognition. recog-nition. He said the state's record of 148 fatal home accidents last year was one of the best in the nation and he gave credit for it to the home safety division of the council and Its head, Mrs. George ' P. Parker. But Mr. Fansler called attention to one home safety weak spot In Utah our excessive child drowning rate and said he thought the answer might be found in closer adult supervision. , Utah la not unaware of its child drowning problem. It is in fact a problem prob-lem for thia whole intermountain region of irrigated farms. There are literally thousands of miles of irrigation ditches deep enough to drown a youngster in this region. And such ditches are unusually hazardous. For- one thing they are not like natural streams and creeks. They are usually steepsided. They are commonly unfenced. There is no. warning marshy land along their banks. For -another thing they are not a constant hazard be- cause for many months of the year no water flows in them. Lastly they run right by the front or back yard playgrounds play-grounds of thousands upon thousands of children in our rural or suburban areas. It is a serious problem for Utah. We can't turn off the water in our irrigation irriga-tion ditches. We cannot build childproof child-proof fences along thousands of miles of these ditches. The only answer is, as Mr. Fansler suggests, closer - adult supervision. Parents in Utah, and in this entire intermountain country, must accept a special responsibility for guarding guard-ing their younger children from this unusual un-usual drowning hazard. They must recognize tne danger, and when irrigation irriga-tion ditches are full take special precautions precau-tions to insure that small children cannot can-not tumble into these ditches and lose their lives. i