Workplace & Aquatic Facilities
"I wanted to pass along this news story for you and your staff concerning the turtle. It has been slightly just over a year since we installed the turtle in all of our branches. Yesterday the turtle was involved in a pool emergency at our Downtown YMCA location and really improved the response time for the victim. It allowed our guard to be a first responder in a lone guard situation and give him the ability to give 100% of his attention to the victim and have the comfort that help was on the way. After folks see this and our insurance company which is Redwoods Groups promotes the Turtle even more you may get lots of calls. It help us save a life yesterday. Our victim is not out of the woods yet but hopefully all will be well. Thanks for all of your support along the way with getting the Turtle installed properly in our YMCAs!" NE, 8 Aug 2008
”Safety Turtle addresses a real concern that I have had with my patients who participate in aquatic therapy,“ said Paul Hougan, founder and president of Therapywerks, Minneapolis. ”I have been particularly impressed with how patients have adopted the practice of using the Safety Turtle alarm. While the safety profile of our patients has been greatly improved with the installation of the Safety Turtle alarm, our patients hardly notice the alarm components and the alarm in no way affects their therapy experience.“
"The front desk staff needs to respond to the pool area and see what needs to happen next," said Simi Valley YMCA Aquatics Director Robert Martin. "The whistles can't always be heard through the walls of the facility. On the first day the alarm was installed, a little girl at the YMCA taking swim lessons was rescued after falling off the steps into the water while her instructor worked with another child. I think what it's done is made the rest of the staff here more aware that we do make rescues. Now everyone hears it."
“A portable aquatic-emergency summoning device should be employed instead of a hard-wired emergency button or telephone in the pool area. Such a device would allow the lifeguard to respond nearly immediately to an aquatic emergency, rather than having travel from where s/he was standing to the emergency call button and then to the distressed swimmer. The lost time often precludes the guard from meeting the 10-second standard for reaching the distressed swimmer. Such devices can be obtained from several sources. Appropriate protocols combined with a commercial version of the Safety Turtle™ (see www.safetyturtle.com) or devices similar to models DXS-62 or DXS-63 by Linear Security, when coupled with an appropriate receiver provide excellent coverage (see www.linearcorp.com).”, Peter Kvale, Risk Management Services, Redwoods Group