Blind Girl Supervised by Blind Counsellors Drowns in Lake

"In a lake with two lifeguards on duty, a 7-year-old blind girl drowned after asking a blind camp counselor who accompanied her into the water if she could head back to shore...

"When something like this happens, you do think about the fact they were blind and wonder," said Joyce Scanlan, executive director of Blind Inc., who is blind. "But I believe that blindness -- either in the child or the counselors -- had nothing to do with this. There are many sighted children who also drown."...

"There's no blame here -- it was just her time to go," said Brianna's father, Carl Nelson. "We knew going in that the counselors were blind." "

OK........."There are many sighted children who also drown" is the weakest defence I have ever heard in my life. It's akin to saying "Being drunk has got nothing to do with the car crash - many sober drivers also crash". And I have to say that her dad is taking this EXTREMELY well....but then maybe we don't know the whole story.

Unbelievable.

Full story:

http://www.wftv.com/newsofthestrange/2349273/detail.html

It was her time to go? At age seven?

Oh, heavenly days...

that your child's "time to go" arrives so much earlier when supervision is grossly inadequate?

What an amazing coincidence.......

P.

That poor little girl (and counselor). WTF were the lifeguards doing?

Watching all the likely talent on the beach?

On the local news last night they had the president of the Minnesota chapter of the American Federation of the Blind (who is blind himself) who did say there were times one should have a sighted person along and he thought this was one of them.

They also had the woman who is head of the organization that had the kids at the beach. She was still defending their actions and said the whole point of their group is that blind kids learn independence from blind adults. In general, I'd agree with that. Not this time. At the least, they should have had a New Foundland along (I'm not being entirely snide, my uncle has a New Foundland - everytime one of the grandkids were in the pool (with supervision) the dog kept trying to pull someone out.)

It was also pointed out that there were life guards at the beach. Now, Lake Calhoun is usually pretty crowded in the summer. I don't know about anyone else here but, any time I've ever had my nieces & nephews at the beach, I don't go in the water because I'm too busy constantly counting heads. And I've had trouble keeping 4 or 5 kids in site at all times. No way I would leave it all to a lifeguard who's watching a couple hundred people in the water.

By all means teach blind kids how to be independent, but do it in a safe environment with the appropriate level of support.

You wouldn't leave a sighted kid to get to shore by themselves without someone actively observing them to make sure they got out OK, so why would you allow a blind kid to do it?

This is a terrible, terrible tragedy, but made more terrible by the fact that it was both unavoidable AND the protagonists seem unwilling to acknowledge that anything was wrong with the setup.

Still, it makes a change from everyone suing each other, eh?

P.

I agree with you about the dog, though -- my dad has a Newfoundland (it's one word, BTW, just like the province) cross named Gilgamesh (Gillie for short), and he's great at pulling people out of water, although he doesn't much like to swim. Newfie dogs are also intelligent enough to function adequately as ad-hoc seeing-eye dogs, too.

Disability evangelicals make me nuts! I get really tired of these folks, and speaking as someone with cerebral palsy, I've been dealing with them ever since I was old enough to take over from the 'rents. They're the type who *insist* that you really don't need help, even when you do, sometimes with (obviously enough) very negative results. Interdependence is not a crime! (Sometimes I think these type of folks have inner Randroids that they let off the leash a little too often.)

Polo!



Marco!



Glug!

I pass that camp on US-178 climbing the mountain into Rosman, NC. Thank goodness such camps exist, however! A friend of mine used to work at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine. One of their famous alums is Ray Charles.

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