What took so long? 6-yr-old boy drowns at camp
July 26, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A 6-year-old autistic boy, Lucas Beaupre-Vallieres, drowned yesterday, July 25th, at Lac-St-Joseph, which is outside of Quebec Cuty. Beaupre-Vallieres was attending a day camp with some 100 other children and went missing soon after arriving at the beach. Camp supervisors only notified lifeguards after Beaupre-Vallieres was missing for two hours. He was pulled from the lake around 2pm with no vital signs. Today’s Canada.com notes that Beaupre-Vallieres was one of the few special needs children attending the camp and was supposed to have an accompanying adult with him constantly; the person who usually did this was not able to be present on the Wednesday trip to the lake and a different person was assigned to be with him. Beaupre-Vallieres’ mother was contacted the night before and agreed to the new aide.
Summer is all about swimming in pools, lakes, the ocean, for Charlie. Sad, sad stories like Lucas Beaupre-Vallieres’ give me pause—and remind me that, though Charlie is a very good swimmer, I can never watch him too closely.
Oh God. I recently had a friend tell me, at the pool, that I “just needed to calm down.” She thought I hovered too much. She does not have an autistic child. She can’t understand.
Two hours…that is a very long time.
Do you get the idea that someone screwed up and was running around with crossed fingers before ‘fessing up? This is very sad.
We have worked very hard on having our daughter check in with us and come back to “base” which is a skill that I thank my stars that we spent time on; but I still don’t take it for granted. We also taught her when younger to tolerate wearing a life vest for boating, but it’s also a backup for regular water activities.
100 kids is a lot. My daughter was on a lakeside field trip with 25 (mostly typical elementary age) kids with 4 adults and those ladies were sweating from having to monitor that number of kids. Any kid can, and often do, drown in situations where folks just took their eyes away for “just a minute”.
That is so sad and infuriating. I think infuriating is the only thing I can really feel at this time. The same goes for Bink’s so-called friend telling her to calm down.
My son is very good in the water but I’m always at arm’s length. Lifeguards are not babysitters.
Back at my hometown we had a public pool which was a cemented, dammed up creek. Tons of unattended kids, parents out of sight relying on the lifeguards to discipline them. I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything happened.
An 8-year-old (not autistic) boy drowned in the ocean yesterday here in New Jersey—-he had gone into the waves at 7pm, after the lifeguards were gone. Sober reminders—I would so rather not hearing about them.
This is heartbreaking. Autistic or not, I would feel very wary of having my child at a camp swimming with such a large group without me or another trusted adult with him.
Karen is right: Autisitic or not, you just simply DO NOT leave a 6-year-old child swimming on his own without close supervision. This is reckless, this is negligence.
I think Kristina has shared with us more than enough drowned tradegies in the swimming areas that we should really step up our guard and ensure fewer (preferably no more, but we can’t be sure) accidents should happen again.
I don’t want to sensationalize the topic but everytime I read one of these stories it strikes me very close to home. A former behavior consultant told us that a boy he worked with drowned in his own swimming pool—he was a really good swimmer and his parents were there. That story has made me think about how, while Charlie is also a good swimmer, he could try out one daredevil trick and get stuck and not be able to call out—-he could panic and not call out—–I’ll be the crazy mom following him around at the pool any day, always better than something so awful happening.
How very very sad. This is one of my greatest fears. I am always worried K.C. will get left behind on the schoolbus in the hot Arizona weather because he doesn’t talk and can’t say, “hey wait for me, you left me.” Just can’t trust anyone with your kiddos. Its so heartbreaking!
All right, I might sound just too heartless when I gave my previous comment. But indeed, a close eye is always a safe way to keep one safe. Not just that one might not be able to voice out in trouble, but also because one can do daredevil trick very easily and simply step cross the line of possible death.
It also reminds me another “accident” in Minnesota that a boy was sitting on top of an uncovered drainage and had his backside and intestines removed due to the damage… We must be on our guard.
i’ll be the mother hawk at the pool, lake, or ocean with fluffy anyday also. i so relate to the vigilence, the NECESSARY vigilience when your child is in the water. fluffy is a good swimmer but good swimmers drown too. so scary and upsetting.
Even an experienced swimmer can drown. I was at a USA club swim meet (everyone there, even the seven-year-olds, were proficient swimmers and could easily swim the length of an Olympic sized pool) and one of the swimmers had a seizure in the water. Thankfully, most of the swim coaches were certified lifeguards and they pulled her out in time. It just goes to show that you can’t be too careful because anything can happen.