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Show By Jack Wallis Last week two drownings took place, one at Steinaker Reservoir and one at Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Both victims vic-tims were swimming and apparently couldn't make it back to shore or to their boat. A year ago almost to the same week, June 28, a Tridell youth drowned in Steinaker. Apparently, this time of the year is the most dangerous for swimmers. According Ac-cording to the American Medical Association, swimming is one of the most popular of summer sports and is also one of the most dangerous of outdoor out-door pastimes. Death from drowning can occur at any age. Inability to swim, inexperience, inex-perience, carelessness, poor judgement or lack of supervision are causes of most water accidents. Swimmers must know their limitations. limita-tions. The depth of the water should be checked and hidden rocks and stumps located before diving. Swimmers should always have someone else along who is a good swimmer. A swimmer in trouble often can survive sur-vive if he or she stays calm. According to officials a distressed swimmer should maintain a face-up floating position, posi-tion, keeping hands under water while moving hands and feet slowly. It is possible to stay afloat for hours with relatively little effort. But thrashing the water in panic will exhaust the endangered en-dangered swimmer quickly, according to the American Medical Association. This is the time ot the year to remember swimming safety rules and save lives. Swimming can be great fun or on the other hand it can turn into a terrible experience resulting in sudden death. Swimmers should be extremely cautious when swimming in our nearby recreational reservoirs. Two drownings in one week is frightening. In almost every local public entity council, commission or board meeting one of the most important matters of business discussed seems to be, "What lawsuit do we face this week?" or "Who is suing us now?" Instead of working out difficult problems pro-blems and making agreement through compromise, the popular way of meeting difficulties is to take it to court or sue the organization or individual. At the present time there are threatening and pending lawsuits in our community concerning water systems, annexation problems and other matters. mat-ters. We can recall suits that have involved in-volved teachers, public officials, and public entities. Much money has been spent in bringing cases to court, sometimes taxpayers pay for both sides. Court cases are usually long and drawn out and the end results don't change the matter very much. We would hope that more of our local governmental problems could be settled settl-ed out of the courts and that going to court is not used iust as an excuse to avoid working out a settlement for a difficult dif-ficult problem involving different viewpoints. view-points. Suing each other and going to court among public entities increases the costs of services to the taxpayer. It would seem more problems could be solved without the constant threat of legal litigation. |