How deep?

There can be no compromise on safety. I don't care how short you are you can hit your head. "Its no fun waiting your turn at the ladder." How would you feel if you were in a wheel chair for life? I am not willing to put others in danger because you have to wait your turn at the ladder. To be blunt, you need to work on getting out of the pool without help, your swimming will improve greatly. You are not that old and not that short. We call them deck-ups, do ten each workout for a couple of weeks and then increase. Your coach will be glad to help you get stronger. Sorry but this is too important to be politically correct about. Coach Wayne McCauley

I am so glad I posted this question. I had absolutely no idea that starts from blocks would be allowed in such shallow water! I guess it might be realitively safe for experienced swimmers. But, what about the children's team, or an adult, when they are learning starts? What about that impulsive kid who, before the guard can say no running, goes in head first? What about the swimmer who just plain misjudges when diving? Thanks for all your input.

Pool depths, For teaching diving from the deck the American Red Cross Water Safety Instructors need at least 8ft (It could be more, I am spacing a little bit on this). So letting kids dive in water that is less than 5 ft is cause for a big problem (this from the deck, not talking about the added height of a starting block). Of course we are master swimmers and the starting blocks have warnings and we are properly trained (yada yada yada), for safety 4 ft should be the bare minimum for starting blocks, people always have the choice where to start. As for the recreation people using the blocks, unless of course your blocks are in 10ft plus of water (see red cross guidelines, also need 11ft 6in to teach springboard diving froma 1 meter board). Cynthia I agree with Wayne, there are worse things than having to wait to climb out of a pool after an event, if you think that takes long - think about the delay in the swim meet when the aquatics staff has to backboard and extracate a swimmer with a neck/back injury. For pool depth safety, someone can drown in less than a foot of water, so why worry about what depth a pool is. Most facilities are two pools, one with deep water and one with shallow water, or in some cases pools with moveable bottoms so they can adjust the depth of part of the pool. Lastly thinking back on my age group swimming, we swam in a 50 meter pool, shallow end was 2ft 9in, this is where the starting blocks were located (I do mean starting blocks the square 2 step fiberglass boxes that we dove off of, can't remember anyone having a serious injury - of course now looking back, what were they thinking ! Jeff

I said that the pool can have both a 5 feet side and 8 feet side. And many master swimmers that are beginners or older do not have to dive they can start in the pool. So, the agrument injuries can be caused by 5 feet water for master swimmers doesn't hold up since they can start in the water. As for kids diving into water 5 feet and less and causing injuries this does happen. But high school and college swimmers have hurt themselves playing on the high dive platform and diving into water that is sometimes 15 to 20 feet. A lot of accidents can be avoided by follwing the rules. And the new rule states that pools under 4 feet in deep can not have a high block this is good. Jeff, half the high school swim pools could not have swim meets if a 7 feet rule was enforced since many of them were built before or about the time I was swimming in high school.

Also, many diving accidents by teenagers and children occur with just a 1 meter springboard. Probably, another reason that someone that is playing on a diving board should not do that. I probably shouldn't complain about having to use a ladder. But I think most accidents that are cause by diving in pools are mainly children doing things like cannon balls in swallow water that the pool signs state you should not do and playing on the diving boards. But maybe someone of the people hear are right that 6 feet to 8 feet around will prevent beginning swimmers and children doing cannon balls from having diving injuries.i