On a recent morning, 10-year-old Elijah Mathis did a cannonball into the pool at a local YMCA.
“Make a splash!” his swim instructor encouraged.
For a moment, at least, Elijah forgot about the deep water that nearly took his life just months ago.
Five days a week, people of all ages receive swimming lessons at the Cuyahoga Falls Riverfront YMCA, where a sign on the door reminds that drowning is silent.
Some people go to brush up on their swimming skills, while others, like Elijah, go out of necessity.
On Memorial Day, Elijah was chasing his friend around the pool at his apartment complex in Akron when he slipped and fell into the deep end. Not knowing how to swim, it wasn’t long before Elijah was at the bottom of the pool.
“I remember seeing the top of the water,” Elijah said. “I was scared.”
Elijah had tried to get to the surface, but he ran out of energy and lost consciousness.
“I’m just happy someone noticed him down there when they did,” said his mother, Deonka Mathis, who wasn’t home at the time. “No one really noticed until someone pointed out that he was down there.”
Elijah’s friend noticed and told his father, who pulled Elijah out. A woman had to administer CPR on him — something Mathis said the good samaritan had learned from watching TV.
“In a sea of grownups, no one knew CPR,” Mathis said.
Elijah was transported to Akron Children’s Hospital, where he stayed for a few hours before being discharged.
“That was the scariest moment of my life,” Mathis said. “He was one of the lucky ones.”
Heather Trnka, the injury prevention coordinator at Akron Children’s Hospital, was with Elijah when a local TV station interviewed him about the incident several days after it occurred. Within minutes of that interview, Trnka was on the phone with representatives at the Riverfront YMCA to get Elijah free swim lessons.
“We made it happen that day,” Trnka said. “He was in within a week.”
“This is a blessing because I had looked into lessons before this happened, but they were so expensive,” Mathis said.
Although Elijah’s free lessons are a special case, the YMCAs in the Akron area are making an effort to reach out and provide more kids with swim lessons.
Along with programs like Make a Splash, which offers free water safety classes to underprivileged kids, the YMCA also allows people to fill out a financial aid form to subsidize the lessons.
“We raise the dollars to help offset those costs,” said Brian Bidlingmyer, senior vice president of the Akron Area YMCA. “We don’t send anyone away for the inability to pay.”
In addition, Bidlingmyer said he has been working with Akron Children’s Hospital and Akron Public Schools to increase his outreach in the area.
“We certainly want to make it our mission to get every child swim lessons, regardless of finances,” Bidlingmyer said.
The extended outreach is an effort to reduce drowning rates, which Trnka says is the No. 1 cause of accidental death for kids 1 to 14. According to the World Health Organization, drowning is the third-leading cause of unintentional injury death in the world, calling it a “major public health problem worldwide.”
In the United States, African American children are particularly at risk.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that African American children 5 to 19 drown in swimming pools at rates 5.5 times higher than white children. For the 11- and 12-year-old age range, the rate is 10 times higher.
The CDC cites numerous causes for the racial disparity, including access to swimming pools, the desire to learn how to swim, and choosing water-related recreational activities.
To prevent drownings, Trnka advised to always watch kids in the pool. She also suggested using Puddle Jumpers, a Coast Guard-approved flotation device, instead of arm floaties and taking swim lessons.
Trnka warns although swim lessons don’t guarantee a drowning won’t occur, the training does help prevent it, especially for kids like Elijah, who now takes swimming lessons twice a week at the YMCA.
Elijah’s swim session wraps up Thursday, but the YMCA offered to continue his lessons as long as he needs them.
“It’s been very peachy,” Elijah said. “I feel a lot better about [swimming].”
When Elijah first started lessons, he could only hold onto the wall and swim in place. Now, after just six lessons, he can propel himself and is improving each time in swimming on his own.
“He still has a ways to go, but he’s definitely a lot stronger than he was,” said Mathis, who still takes him to the neighborhood pool for fun. “Now, he spends most of his time showing me what he can do.”
Theresa Cottom can be reached at 330-996-3216 or tcottom@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @Theresa_Cottom.