Dear editor,

My heart goes out to all that were affected by the incident at the pool, first and foremost the children, the parents of the children and the staff at the aquatic centre.

I meant to write this letter last fall, but perhaps it is better that I write it now. I am a grandmother; I was also a victim of child abuse from a stranger when I was four years old.

This past summer I took my grandchildren (ages 11 and eight at the time) to the Comox Valley Aquatic Centre. I met my son, daughter-in-law and the youngest granddaughter (one year old).

We all put on our bathing suits and went in the pool, and we had some wonderful family time.

I noticed that the pool was busy and there were lifeguards on all four sides of both pools. They rotated sides every 10 minutes or so. I noticed that every so often they would catch the attention of the guard across from them, to ensure all were paying attention.

Then all of a sudden, whistles were blowing and the guards were shouting, 鈥淓veryone out of the pool.鈥� The guards jumped into action. They were all doing a specific job, and they knew what they were doing, checking all the pools, slides, steamrooms, changerooms, every possible corner.

As I was sitting where the glass looks out at the entrance, I saw the lady that works in the office go and lock the front doors. A small child was missing, and we were in lockdown. She was found in one of the changerooms.

The whole incident was likely less than five minutes, but I am telling you that I was impressed with what I saw.

There was another incident a few weeks later that caught my attention. One of the local senior homes鈥� transport bus was dropping off a couple of its residents.

We were well into our exercise session when a couple of very senior ladies came and joined us. A few minutes later one of them lost their balance and could not right herself. A lifeguard on the side of the pool dove into the pool and rescued her with aid from our aquasize instructor.

I have worked in healthcare all my life and I can tell you that I am so happy, so confident and proud to have frontline people of this calibre in our Comox Valley working at our recreation facilities. It was obvious that they are on high alert and well-practiced.

I saw nothing but the highest functioning professional behavior.

I can understand that parents are upset that a horrific thing has happened to their children. Please in your anguish do not blame the people who take such good care of us.

My heart sunk when I heard people were blaming the aquatic staff. I feel they do a fantastic job and are very, very well trained.

I think we all need to learn from this and not point blame. We need to use this opportunity to have a dialogue with our children, inform them of the dangers that are out there and give the children options on how to deal with such dangers, and then follow through, communicate with teachers and recreation staff.

Marlene Campbell,

Comox