Drownings and near-drownings have dominated the news since Independence Day, when a Hamden man who could not swim was swept off a sandbar in Milford.
A jet skier saved a 9-year-old boy, but it took searchers three hours to find Rocco Daddio's body.
"There's adult swim programs, there's programs for the elderly, there's a lot of opportunities for people to go and learn how to swim," said Rob Riccobon, a West Hartford police officer who's been a swim coach for 20 years.
He worked up some statistics from the USA Swimming Federation to dispel the notion that drowning victims are mostly children unsupervised at pools, though that almost happened in New Haven earlier this week when a 4-year-old fell into his family's pool. Rescuers were able to bring him back to life.
Of all the drowning victims in the U.S. since 2008, according to Riccobon, 26.1 percent were children 12 and under; 13.5 percent were teenagers, 13 to 19; and the rest were adults, 60.4 percent.
"And over 25 percent is alcohol-related," Riccobon said. "So what happens is, when you start mixing alcohol in with swimming or an aquatic environment, you run into distress a lot more quickly than you would if you were sober."
Besides learning to swim, people should learn about where they're swimming by asking locals about underwater hazards or about what happens to the sandbar when the tide comes in, he said.
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Next Monday, officials in Milford will hold a "beach safety summit" to review procedures at Silver Sands State Park, the scene of that drowning.
Other drownings include one in Barkhamsted on Lake McDonough last week, where 23-year-old Andres Torres drowned in a part of the lake closed to swimmers, and Middle Pond of the Congamond Lakes on the Massachusetts line, where Kevin Major, 19, drowned on Monday.
