The Silent Danger: Water Safety with ISR Expert Kelsey Strieby

Travis: Here in Texas, there are pools and lakes and creeks and rivers everywhere. And summer, of course, is when we see the most accidental drowning deaths for kids. Texas so far, we've had nineteen kids Mhmm. Die this year in drownings and different environments between pools, lakes, bathtubs. Last year, we had over a 100 kids drown, and so I know Kelsey's on a mission to get that number to zero.

Kelsey: It's a program that teaches kids the safest and most effective way to save themselves if they were to fall into the pool, and no one was there to help them. We do teach babies as young as six months, which is really wild.

Travis: Oh, it's so crazy.

Kelsey: And so we really just encourage people to have a water watcher. Someone who is designated for even a fifteen minute window, a thirty minute window where you don't have your phone. Your phone is inside. It is put up. Yeah.

You are sitting in a designated chair. Sometimes we go as far as having okay. If you have you know, we had a Hawaiian party one time, and they had a flower lay around the neck, and everybody knew that was the water watcher. Kids can get their like, they can knock heads with a sibling. They could knock their head on the side of the pool.

There's a lot of other things aside even if you're a proficient swimmer. Yeah. That if someone is not watching the water, like, an accident can happen. Yeah. No one thinks it's ever going to happen to them.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: And none of us, unfortunately, are exempt.

Travis: Hey there. I'm Travis Patterson, and welcome to Driving Change. Here, you're gonna find unfiltered insights and hard hitting questions that challenge the status quo in law and in life. As a personal injury lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas, I see firsthand how challenges like distracted driving and other just general family safety issues really impact our community every single day, but I refuse to accept these problems as inevitable. In this podcast, we're gonna dig deep into real world problems, bringing you practical solutions from my experiences in practicing law, raising a family, and running my own business.

I'm not here to preach to anybody. I'm here to simply ask questions and start conversations that make you think differently and provide you actual advice that you can use right away in your own life. So welcome to Driving Change. Let's get to it.

Travis: Alright. Welcome to another episode of the Driving Change podcast. I am Travis Patterson joined today by my good friend Kelsey Strieby. Kelsey, thanks for coming on.

Kelsey: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Travis: This is gonna be fun. I know you do podcasts pretty often. Right?

Kelsey: All the time. Every day.

Travis: When you're not in the pool. So Kelsey's in the pool all the time. Kelsey is an ISR swim instructor. If you don't know what ISR is, then this podcast episode is definitely for you. But even for folks who do, even for folks like me who have kids who have gone through the program, talking about water safety is is just critically important, especially now.

It is the month of May, which Kelsey told me on the way over here that it is Water Safety Awareness Month. Correct. And rightfully so, because we are heading into the summer here in Texas. There are pools and lakes and creeks and rivers everywhere, And summer, of course, is when we see the most accidental drowning deaths for kids. Texas so far, we've had nineteen kids Mhmm.

Die this year in drownings and different environments between pools, lakes, bathtubs. Last year, we had over a hundred kids drown, and so I know Kelsey's on a mission to get that number to zero. And so we're gonna get into it. So thanks for coming on, Kelsey.

Kelsey: Thank you. I'm excited to talk about everything.

Travis: Alright. So let's define ISR, I guess, folks who don't know what it is, why it works, and why you're so passionate about it.

Kelsey: So ISR is infant swimming resource. It was created over fifty years ago by a man named Harvey Barnett. He created the program because he saw a child, I believe it was either his nephew or his grandson. I can't totally remember. Mhmm.

But he saw him drown in a pool and he was a psychology mastermind and he thought there has to be a way if we can teach kids to ride a bike and not cross the street when cars are coming, there has to be a way to teach them how to be safe in a pool. And so he was the psychological mastermind behind creating the method known as the ISR method. And then his wife at the time, Joanne, was the one who got in the water and tested out all of the practices and theories. So for over fifty years, we have been teaching ISR and changing and grooming it to be the program that it is today. It's a program that teaches kids the safest and most effective way to save themselves if they were to fall into the pool and no one was there to help them.

We do teach babies as young as six months, which is really wild.

Travis: Oh, so crazy.

Kelsey: So wild. All the way up to six years. Typically, the reason we cut off at six years is just due to the size and also the restrictions that we have with kids. By that time, if they haven't had any sort of swim lesson anywhere, they typically have a history of using puddle jumpers, flotation devices. They have a lot more learned responses and resistance to the training of the muscles that we're doing, and it becomes really challenging.

In some cases, six year olds start to be bigger than some of our ISR instructors as well. So it gets really tricky. Yeah. Also, we want early intervention with it. We want kids to know how to do this as soon as possible.

Travis: So you actually before that muscle memory sets in, it's easier when the kids are younger to teach them how to do this. So, essentially, if if you've never seen ISR in action, and this is my layman's terms of it, and Kelsey can talk us through the the science. But what they're doing is if a kid falls in, Kelsey is training the kids to get to their backs and to start floating until they get to the edge of the pool. And it is wild. You can see on YouTube, you can see a six month old doing this.

I've seen my own kids doing this. I mean, my youngest son just graduated from Kelsey's program, and he's not even two yet. And you go to this the graduation ceremony kinda deal, and they they go into the pool with all their clothes on. I mean, that's another thing. Obviously, when most drownings happen, these kids aren't in swimsuits.

They're in heavy clothing and shoes and stuff like that. And so Kelsey has trained these kids to float on their backs with all their clothes on and get out of the pool on their own before the age of two, which is just wild. So yeah. So you you talked about water puddle jumpers, water wings

Kelsey: Mhmm.

Travis: Things like that. When I when I see the kids in the ISR program, it's all about getting flat on their back so they can float and breathe. A lot of other those devices, though, kids are not flat. Right? They're vertical Right.

In the pool. And so let's talk about that because I know when my kids were super super young, my other ones, you warned us, hey, you've just gone to this ISR. I don't want you going over to using those tools because it's counterintuitive of what they've just learned. So talk about why that is because every time I go to a pool, I see those things everywhere. And

Kelsey: And you hear me playing back in your head like Yeah. People Kelsey said this and we can't do that and why are these other people doing it? Well, and I think that's something in we teach based on muscle memory and that is why ISR is so different. But at the same time, when people are using the water wings or puddle jumpers as they're well known right now, it also is teaching a muscle memory. It is a learned response of what to do when you are in or around water.

So we know that kids, people, humans, all of us are born with an innate desire to breathe.

Travis: Mhmm.

Kelsey: It's magical. And so we will all naturally do whatever we can in points of desperation or panic to breathe. That's our natural instinct. So kids who have never been in flotation, if they are to fall into the water, that there is no theory out there. There's no proof that kids can fall into a pool and roll onto their back and breathe.

Mhmm. However, anyone who falls into water will naturally try to find air even if they can only sustain air for one second. What happens when we're using the puddle jumpers, kids are jumping into water, they're swimming around, they have this device that is holding their body in a vertical position and their arms in a t position

Travis: Mhmm.

Kelsey: And that is becoming a muscle memory, a learned position for them. It is also communicating to those children that they can have air anytime they're in water because it's not allowing them to be submerged and experience that feeling of my head is underwater and I need air. So what naturally will happen is if the child is near water and not wearing that piece of flotation, someone accidentally takes it off of them, they naturally find a way to get out of it themselves because we know kids are crazy. They can find a way to

Travis: 100%.

Kelsey: Get out of a tent over their crib to unbuckle their car seat, whatever it is. They will jump in the water, and I have seen this happen with my own eyes, and I'm sure you probably have seen it at times too. They will find their way back to water. They will jump in. Their body will go in the t position.

There's no kicking. There's no crying. There's no trying to surface for air because they are waiting on that device to bring them to the top of the water. Yeah. And so they just become a really, really dangerous thing.

You know, I said this when we were chatting earlier. We call them a babysitter, and it's kind of a ISR joke, but it really is a babysitter. And when that babysitter fails, what what can children do if they haven't learned how to breathe and find air on their own? Yeah. Whether through ISR or another swim program.

Travis: Yeah. I mean, thinking about all this, talking about it, I mean, it's you know, and the reason I'm, like, so proud of you because it's such a hard thing to think about. It's like, you know, you're the one that gets a phone call every time a kid drowns and every time there's a near drowning. And so it's hard and it's heavy stuff, and it's like, you don't wanna think about it, but we gotta think about it. We gotta talk about it because we gotta be prepared, especially as we go into summer.

Kelsey: Mhmm.

Travis: I see it all the time. Cell phones. Right? The bane of my existence on the driving safety stuff that we are always talking about with distracted driving. And then you I talk about high school kids always on their cell phones and how that's ruining childhood.

Now we can take cell phones to the pool. Right? How many stories do you know of Kelsey where good, well intentioned parents, right, these are good folks, and they just didn't think they were gonna get distracted, but they did, and cell phones are probably a common culprit of parents getting distracted by the pool. But what do you see there with cell phones and and just distractions by the pool? Because there's there's just a lot going on when you have a bunch of kids in a pool.

Kelsey: There is. And the chaos in general of a pool like, I always tell people, if you invite me to a pool party, just know I'm not coming. Like, I'm not coming. We have four children. I'm not coming to your pool party.

My kids can swim. I'm sure your kids can swim. It is a very high stress situation, and even the best intention people having lifeguards, like, things can still happen.

Travis: Interesting. Yeah.

Kelsey: And so for me, phones are just they're a major no around water. We talk about, you know, supervision and making sure kids are safe. But I mean, I have seen it. We've talked about this where parents are looking at their phone because I'm in the water with another child giving a lesson, and a sibling will wander into my pool, and it happens so fast. Same thing happens, as you know, having multiple children.

You have your phone out and you look to text your wife, hey, I've got dinner covered tonight.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: To you, it's point two seconds.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: But to a kid, that's long enough for them to fall into the water or take a misstep on the steps or get into the water. And, I mean, I'm guilty. My husband's guilty. We it's not even the phone always.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: We keep having a conversation, and one of our older kids will say, hey, mommy. Watch me. And I'll watch them jump in, and they can do their thing. And the next thing I know, I look down, and my, you know, two year old that was just on the tanning ledge is now on the next to bottom step. And Yeah.

And if, you know, if he didn't have the skills to survive, like, what what would happen? So phones are just a huge they're a huge life distraction. But I see them, you know, whether we're at country clubs or at friends' houses, you know, somebody's always on their phone. And so we really just encourage people to have a water watcher, someone who is designated for even a fifteen minute window, a thirty minute window where you don't have your phone. Your phone is inside.

It is put up. Yeah. You are sitting in a designated chair. Sometimes we go as far as having, okay, if you have, you know, we had a Hawaiian party one time and they had a flower lei around the neck and everybody knew that was the water watcher.

Travis: Oh, wow.

Kelsey: And I really encourage people to do that because it is so easy to even if it's there's not a party and it's just your family, it's so easy to get distracted by a phone or another child or a sound or a neighbor or whatever it is, and then and it's seconds. Yeah. It's Truly a second.

Travis: It's so quick. And and once they go under, it's very quiet.

Kelsey: So quiet.

Travis: And so quiet. And that's the other scary part about all this. Mhmm. And so, yeah, you think about that water watcher, and and the job of that person, obviously, is to focus and just constantly be scanning.

Kelsey: Mhmm.

Travis: Right? It it's like the way I talk to high school kids about driving. I want you to always be scanning for threats Yes. And and and keeping an eye on what's going on, and that's kinda what that water watcher needs to do. You can't just watch one kid.

Obviously, you gotta go boom boom boom boom boom. And it's a it's a it's a hyper state of vigilance.

Kelsey: Right. And I mean, you all you touched on it a little bit earlier, things that we talked about. Even rafts, tubes, all the pool toys that are in the pool. I remember having a conversation with you when you first did ISR with your two older boys and I said, please don't put them in the circular tubes that have an open bottom because it teaches them once again a vertical position, their legs can fall through them. But the other side of that is kids jump in, they swim, even if they know how to get on their back and float or they're a strong swimmer and they can tread water, they can get stuck underneath those.

Kids can get their like, they can knock heads with a sibling. They could knock their head on the side of the pool. There's a lot of other things aside even if you're a proficient swimmer Yeah. That if someone is not watching the water, like, an accident can happen.

Travis: Yeah. And it's not just, you know, little babies all the time. I mean, there's kids that you think can swim, and you've seen them swim, you've seen them swim across the pools, but those kinds of kids can get stuck in sticky situations. And if you're not watching, it it can get bad.

Kelsey: Well, and drowning, you know, we it's very well known now that, you know, it's the leading cause of death for kids five and under. And my personal experience, and I know this is gonna vary based off of where you live and your access to water and all the different things, but my experience with it is a lot of the stories that I hear and a lot of the information I receive of drowning or near drowning victims, it is really between that, like, 18 to three and a half, and of it's it's always in a non swim time. Always. Uh-huh. I don't have a single real life story of a child drowning that is in a swim time.

I know they exist. I'm just saying what

Travis: Personal experience.

Kelsey: Clients I've had, personal experiences. It's always a non swim time, and it is always someone who says, you know, no one thinks it's ever going to happen to them.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: And none of us, unfortunately, are exempt, you know.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: I know you talk about safe driving a lot. I I compare water safety lessons of any kind to a car seat. You use a car seat in a car to protect your child in the worst case scenario. We hope that's gonna work. We hope that that car seat's gonna be what, know, saves their life.

Travis: But it's not everything.

Kelsey: But you have to it's not going to. It's not everything. There's other layers to that, but we have to do our job to give them all the tools they need Yeah. In those circumstances and be diligent when you're around water.

Travis: So what are all those tools, Kelsey? So I'm assuming it starts with supervision.

Kelsey: Obviously, yes. Supervision's huge.

Travis: And then, yes, but you are human and mistakes happen. And so what are the other things? I imagine code compliant pool fencing?

Kelsey: Yes. So pool fences, I know they're ugly. Yeah. I didn't want one at my own house. My husband told me, you're absolutely crazy.

You're having a pool fence. They are ugly.

Travis: But yeah.

Kelsey: They are ugly, but they do save lives. 100%. There are companies out there who specialize in this fencing that helps keep that's auto latching gates, making sure that the whole pool is surrounded. You know, at our house, we have our back patio surrounded because it was too hard to get it around the pool due to the elevation. So finding a way to fence your pool.

Mhmm. I know it's ugly. It's not forever, and it saves lives. There are pool alarms. They can be very costly, but you can actually buy alarms to put in a pool that if it senses motion, it will go off.

Door alarms are also great. They're Mhmm. They're very cheap. You can buy them off Amazon, and they make a noise if

Travis: Some some states now, they're legally required to

Kelsey: pull Arizona. Arizona is one of

Travis: those states. Florida too.

Kelsey: Florida. And I would

Travis: make vacation in Florida, and it's annoying because if you don't press the button right, it chirps at you so loud and right and it's right in your ear because kids can't reach it and stuff, but it works. You'll you'll know if that door opens to that pool.

Kelsey: High locks, doggy doors, like, this is the Yeah. One of the main things kids can crawl out doggy doors. Don't have a doggy door. And if you do, that thing needs to be locked at all times. I think we talked about, you know, water watchers.

Have a designated person that is watching the pool, educating yourselves. Mhmm. Not putting toy toys in the pool that can, you know, cause further issue. Knowing that one big one that people don't think about, and this is gonna go down a whole another tangent, the color of swimsuit your child wears makes a big difference. If you have your child in a light blue, a white, even a bright blue rash guard and swimsuit, if they were to have a drowning situation

Travis: They're camouflaged.

Kelsey: You can't see them.

Travis: Right. Wow.

Kelsey: Bright colors. Red, lime green. I love it when I go to a swimsuit store, and it's just loud and obnoxious. Oh, interesting. Are cute.

They're really they're a big thing here in the South. We we love our southern smocked and our, like, Beaufort Bonnet cuteness.

Travis: My boys were rocking their navy blue swimsuits last night.

Kelsey: I know. And it's there's a proven fact. If you take a picture of a kid in the water

Travis: I've seen this before. I know what you're talking about.

Kelsey: I know. And you take a picture, blue's gonna camouflage. It's gonna blend in white, light colors. It's gonna be the hardest thing to find.

Travis: So you talk about a lot of the drownings that you've heard about

Kelsey: Mhmm.

Travis: For the kids, three and a half and under, they're non swim times. So I'm guessing it's during the day, whether it's a babysitter or you're just home, and and the kid sneaks out Mhmm. Accidentally. Gets go go goes to the pool to pick up a toy, certain scenarios like that. So what can you do?

I mean, what's your advice? Like, I know, you know, we we have a he's he'll be two this summer, you know, and you we're always kinda with him, but if for a second, you're like, wait, where did he go? Because he he goes around the corner, and if it's if five seconds go by and we can't get a visual on him, I always beeline it to the pool. You know what I mean? It's because I'm always just like

Kelsey: The pool.

Travis: Freaked out. And I because I've heard enough of these stories.

Kelsey: It's all that's where you look. I don't and I tell people, I don't care if it's December and your pool is not it's not a swim time, and nobody's going outside. It's too cold. Always look in the pool. We had a family.

They came to me just to get some information about ISR, and their son had a nonfatal drowning. And it was March family party. Mhmm. Someone had taken trash out, didn't get the door latched all the way. They didn't even know that the kid was old enough to open the door essentially, like, reach up and grab it, but was one of the push down door handles.

He reached up and got it open enough from the crack that was left, and he got out, and it was March, and it was a cold day. And the mom, I remember her telling me, and it's just really stuck with me since Yeah. They looked all through the house for him, everywhere, couldn't find him. Mhmm. And then somebody saw the door back to the pool open.

And they went out, and that's where he was. And she said, you know, he's obviously severely impaired for the rest of his life. He's alive, and they're thankful for that. Yeah. But she said, I often wonder, had we just checked the pool first, like, how much sooner we would have found him?

Like, much less damage would have been done? Yeah. And it is. It's it's always the getting out a door or you're out of the pool and you're getting dressed to go home and you're getting your other three kids dressed and your two year old runs off, and it's like

Travis: Yeah.

Kelsey: Okay. But, yes, always always check the pool.

Travis: Absolutely. Yeah. I saw Kelsey doing the research on this that, you know, for every one fatal drowning we have for kids, there's, like, seven times as many nonfatal, you know, submergent sub submergent accidents near drownings. Mhmm. And like you said, a lot of these have lifelong effects with brain development and memory issues and all sorts of all sorts of problems.

It's not just pools, though. Right? So I I didn't realize this, but in Texas, half of our drownings are in natural water environments. Mhmm. Right?

Kelsey: Right.

Travis: Lakes, rivers, creeks. Talk why is that?

Kelsey: People, believe, do not have an understanding of how dangerous those waters can be. Even kids who have swim lessons, I encourage when you are at the beach Mhmm. Or if you are in the river or the lake, you absolutely need to have a traditional life jacket on. I'm talking the best kind, not the bottle jumper kind, the best kind. Those are the really the only option when there is moving water.

Moving water is a whole different ballgame. Mhmm. I think just about, like, our local river. You step in, kids are waiting, having fun, up to their, you know, waist, and all of a sudden, the water shifts. There's currents that aren't in a pool Yep.

And you're now being swept downstream, and you can't even if you know how to swim, you're swimming against current, you're getting tired, you're trying to get on your back. There's so many factors. Yeah. Lakes are dark.

Travis: Lakes are dark. Can't see underneath that wall.

Kelsey: Dirty. I don't if you've at the Possum Kingdom lately, but that is muddy mess out there right now. Right. Kids can fall in, and it can be murky. There's also a lot of factors like algae and things like that.

They aspirate on that because Yeah. They can't get a good deep breath. It's not clean water. That's a whole another risk. Yeah.

And, you And you get so many times, and we have a story through an ISR family, and people will jump in the water to help someone.

Travis: Mhmm.

Kelsey: And they can swim, but people get tired, and then they both submerge, and you don't see them. Wow. I just think that there's almost this it's the mindset of it's not gonna happen to me and this being invincible. Like, I I know how to swim, overconfidence, but that won't happen to me. And it just it does.

Rivers Yeah. Lakes, ponds, the beach. Right?

Travis: Do you think we should do more pool, like, water safety stuff, swim lessons in natural water environments, or just have more education and more awareness about all these different variables, like you said, the the currents and the changing temperatures and the murky waters? I mean, I was just shocked when I saw that half of our drownings are in those environments.

Kelsey: I personally believe that education is gonna be your best culprit there to help with those things because all of those natural water situations are gonna vary immensely. Yeah. The currents aren't gonna be the same in the Trinity River as they are in the Brazos. Like, it's just

Travis: And we don't wanna do swim lessons in the Trinity River.

Kelsey: I actually am not getting in the Trinity River to do swim lessons, so you'll have to find someone else to do that. Absolutely. But I do think Education's education. For sure. And like I said, there are a lot of people will find a lake, a river, a stream to get access to water because they aren't able to have access to a pool for whatever reason, and a lot of times have had no experience whatsoever about water.

And I think that there's a big misunderstanding of the risk. Mhmm. And so if we're educating better about those risks, and I love we go up to the Pacific Northwest to where visit my husband's family in the summer. Every single lake, stream not stream, creek. Anywhere you go, in every little town, there is a setup with life jackets.

And it has information about the risk of being in the water without it, that you should like, they're provided for free. Basically saying, hey, you don't know what you're doing. Like, put this on. If you don't know how to swim, if you've never been in a lake, you've never been in a creek. And I love that because it is edge and it's in both English and Spanish.

I think they even may have other languages up there that they but people can read it. They can understand it, and they're at least educated on those risks. Mhmm. And then they can choose for themselves, you know, do we wanna put this life jacket on or

Travis: Yeah.

Kelsey: Wait and hope that it doesn't happen to me?

Travis: Yeah. You know, the way I do it like, we we used to spend a lot of time at the lake too, and it you know, as soon as my kids step foot on the bridge going out to the dock, you're wearing a life jacket.

Kelsey: Absolutely.

Travis: And I don't care if you don't like it. I don't care if it's hot. You're wearing a life jacket. And that's if you don't like it, then you can stay in the house.

Kelsey: That's pretty much my opinion on them. I know. I got into it with my kids last summer. We were at the lake, and they're like, we know how to swim. I'm like, that's great.

But you don't know how to swim in a lake. You might know how to swim, but what happens when you get tired?

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: What happens when it gets too dark? Or the current change like, it's just not enough. The waves, the wake. I mean, it's just

Travis: And and what's underneath the lake. I mean, there's trees growing and all sorts of stuff, and yeah. We're not doing that. Yes. Okay.

Let's go back to ISR. Mhmm. It's a nationwide cause. Is it worldwide,

Kelsey: I assume? We are worldwide. I can't tell you how many countries we're in, but I know it's a lot. Yeah. I wanna say it's, like, 26 countries now, but that could be an exaggeration.

Travis: Yeah. I mean, hundreds of thousands of graduates, hundreds and hundreds of success stories. Success story is kind of a weird phrase, but Right. Stories of kids who self rescued Right. Because of their ISR training.

How many of those do you have any stories like that? I mean, you've been doing ISR here in Fort Worth since, what, 2038.

Kelsey: '18. 2018. Yes.

Travis: I think my first maybe my first kid was in your first incoming class.

Kelsey: You were in my 2019.

Travis: 2019?

Kelsey: I think. Yeah. You were in my 2019 for my first full year, so we'll give you credit. You're Oh, yeah. You're almost the original family.

One of the OG's. Only one other family. I think I was actually telling your wife this. There's one other family. They're pregnant with their fifth now, so they've now lapped us with our four children.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: And they were in my very first session of ISR and have been in all of them since.

Travis: So Okay. Well, that's amazing.

Kelsey: I've yes. Twenty eighteen.

Travis: So how many of those stories do you have with kids that you have personally trained?

Kelsey: So this number is astonishing. But in the last five years alone, I have had over 50 reports of kids using their ISR skills.

Travis: Yeah.

Kelsey: That's not necessarily they were there by themselves, and they had to use their skills until help arrived. That number is more in the 10 to 15 range, but 50 plus. And these aren't little stories that I've been told poolside that I've forgotten about. These are, hey, my kid was out watering flowers with grandpa. He leaned over the pool.

He hit his bottom on a flower pot, and the force threw him into the pool. Grandpa was gonna jump in and grab him. He rolled back onto his back and floated, and grandpa was like, hey. Great job, buddy. Let's get out.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah.

Kelsey: We're counting things like that. We're counting kids who have been playing at a friend's house, and they've stepped off the steps too far, and the parents were chitchatting, and they look back, and the kids on their back floating. Right. There have been several where parents didn't know their kids were outside. And once again, those that 10 to 15 number, these are all kids that were in the water at least a minute or longer, and parents, sitters, whoever did not know they were there, but they found them floating.

So it definitely works. Wow. Definitely works.

Travis: I mean, that's crazy, and it gives you chills, and I know it makes you proud, you know, because I I know you save lives, Kelsey, and I know ISR does too. So I'm a big advocate for it and why I wanted to get you on the podcast. I'm just a big proponent of it. And it's just it makes you so proud as a parent once you see your kid develop these skills. Because you obviously, you hope they never have to use it, but you just you never know.

And you just in life, you gotta stop assuming that bad stuff's not gonna happen to you.

Kelsey: Right. And, you know, we all wanna, like, empower our kids. Like, you you know, I know you've done the podcast about youth sports, and we want our kids to be, you know, confident in who they are as people and and in dance and in school. Like, we want to empower our kids, but there's so much so many of us, I feel like, we're missing the mark on empowering our kids in the water. Mhmm.

And they you know, there's a big misperception and this is something I love to, like, point out, like we aren't throwing kids in the water. We aren't giving them this like forceful, you have to come up for air, panic, trauma, desperation. We are taking natural skills that they have and muscles that they have and we're teaching them through confidence and training of those things to be empowered in the water so that there isn't panic when it happens. Yeah. They know what to do.

And I'm a huge advocate, obviously, because it's my job, but also I look at all the things we do and sacrifice for our own kids and kids in the community. And so many times, I'm like, why why are we not all empowering our kids in the water Mhmm. As well? It's a scary, nasty line. I tell kids that all the time.

The pool is so fun. It's such a great place to be, especially in the summer in Texas. Yeah. I think everyone should have access to one and have a blast, but it is a nasty, scary lion that will eat you up in one bite if you don't know what to do with it.

Travis: Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Kelsey: And, you we have to teach them Yeah. What to do so they're not gulped up by the lion.

Travis: Teach them to respect it. Mhmm. So the actual process of ISR Annalise,

Travis: have

Travis: your kids done an ISR before? So it's it's a it's a commitment. Like, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. No. It it is.

Kelsey: Just people the commitment's the worst part, but it's also why it works. So

Travis: Yes. It's it's it's it's worth it. It's worth every dollar. It's worth every every minute. But I know for my kids, it was about ten minutes a day for about six weeks.

Yes. Is that kinda what

Kelsey: Monday through Friday, ten minutes a day for six weeks, five weeks if I'm really doing well that month.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: But, yeah, six weeks, and we will teach anyone who's been walking at least three months from a muscle development standpoint will learn how to swim for four seconds, roll back and float for four seconds or as long as they need to Mhmm. And flip back over and swim, continuing that sequence until they can get out. Or in a lot of cases, if you've got, you know, your two year olds or 18 olds, they will learn to swim and then just roll back to float and rest there as long as they need to until help could arrive because they will tire out. And then our babies who are not walking yet, down to six months old, if they're sitting up independently, they learn to roll back and float. And then as you touched on earlier, we teach them to have an in water experience with summer clothes, fall clothes, winter clothes because once again, you think about the weight of cowboy boots or a diaper or a sweater.

Some of those winter jackets that are the down filled, they fill up and they're so heavy, the the hoods pull on their neck and pull their head back and they're trying to adjust. So we test all of those things and I call it, you know, an in water experience. We don't want them to experience that without us there. Mhmm. But if they were to ever fall in in their clothes, they've now had that experience, and they know how to adjust their bodies in the water

Travis: That's incredible.

Kelsey: To be safe. So

Travis: Alright. So folks, it's a time commitment. There's also a financial component to it, obviously. It's it's a lot of time from from Kelsey or for every ISR instructor is. What's your advice to people who just don't have the means to afford ISR?

I mean, obviously supervision. Are are you a proponent of other water safety lessons or swim lessons? Or if somebody really wants to do ISR, is there a route for that? Are there scholarships available? How does that work?

Kelsey: So I think I'm probably in the same camp as most ISR instructors. I can't speak for them all, but I personally believe in Texas that some sort of swim lesson is better than no lesson at all. Mhmm. There's just so much water and a little bit of knowledge, understanding those layers of protection and the supervision, if you can at least do that, you're far better off than never do anything at all. I think stop using the puddle jumper is another great thing that you can do.

Get in the water with your kids. We always say, if you aren't within an arm's distance of your kid, you're too far away. I don't care how old they

Travis: are. Wow.

Kelsey: Like, you should be able to reach them at all times. So if your child is actively swimming, you are either sitting super close or you are in the water with them. Wow. So And what

Travis: what ages are you talking about? Like, how old is your oldest son?

Kelsey: He's 10. I would not get in the water with my 10 year old. But I also know in my pool that he can get around, they've swam proficiently since they were 18 old. Right. I would say if your child is a proficient swimmer, and I mean proficient in the fact they can swim, they know how to tread water or find their back, by five, six, if Yeah.

I'm gonna say six to be safe due to sizes of kids and things like that, then you can be out of arm's distance but still watching the pool. Right. I mean, I would never not be by the pool if the kids are swimming. But really, those six and under, you you gotta be close.

Travis: You're in the water.

Kelsey: Mhmm. You gotta be you gotta be in the water. And I know I always tell my parents when they're at swim lessons, they're like, so when we we're going to the country club this summer, like, what am I supposed to do? And I always look at them, get in the pool with your kids. And they're like, but but I yes.

Travis: There to socialize.

Kelsey: I yeah. Sorry. So and I'm like, it's I hate to break it to you, but, like, can we just talk for a mom that's been in the pool with her kids for years? Like, there's nothing fun about a swimming pool, even with kids who can swim, until they're probably five. It's stressful.

It's hard. You have to have even if you have a three year old and a five year old, you're constantly doing this.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: You gotta be in the pool with them.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: So, yes, the pool is not supposed to be a fun place. And if you want to go to the pool and have fun, put your kids in childcare, hire a babysitter, don't take them. Our favorite time to swim as a family when our babies have been little is during nap time. The big kids can swim. I don't have to worry about the little two, and it's it's much more relaxing.

Travis: Right.

Kelsey: So I think that's important. I think, really, any swim program that you can get into is better than nothing. But I will also say, don't let the cost or the commitment of ISR scare you. At the end of the day, I think we all learned during COVID, six weeks is not that long. It actually goes really fast.

Yeah. I used to have clients say to me, gosh, I really like you, but I'm so over this. And that was, like, week four. Haven't heard that since 2020. People are like, oh, six weeks?

That's no big deal. Like, this is great. But scholarships are available.

Travis: Yeah. That's awesome.

Kelsey: You know, we're not just handing them out to everyone. Sure. No free candy. But if you truly are passionate about your child's safety, contact us. Contact another instructor.

Express that desire to have the lessons and whatever that threshold is. We can pay $10 a month. We can pay $1,500 a month. Whatever you can pay. Yeah.

And if it's zero, okay. We have things in place locally, and we also have things nationally through ISR and through other water safety programs where we can help get you access to those lessons

Travis: Mhmm.

Kelsey: At a discounted or even a free rate If you if you

Travis: Man, that's amazing.

Kelsey: Qualify.

Travis: So Tarrant County used to have pretty terrible drowning statistics. Right?

Kelsey: And

Travis: have we gotten better?

Kelsey: So when I moved here in 2018 Uh-huh. Tarrant County typically was always in the top three, and there were a few years there. We bounced back and forth with another county for being the top county for drowning deaths. And one thing that's really unique, you kinda talked about the numbers earlier, drowning deaths when they are recorded nationwide, it is because the child, like, came in, drowned, didn't make it. That's typically within, like, a twenty four hour window.

Mhmm. But if they are admitted to the hospital and survive past that twenty four hours and then die of complications after, it is actually not marked as a drowning death. So the numbers are totally skewed. They're they're much lower Right. Than the reality.

Wow. But what I will say is Fort Worth, yay, Maddie Parker, and all of the people in Fort Worth. Cook's has been amazing. They have done so much with it's called a program called Lifeguard Your Children. It came around about the time ISR started in Fort Worth, and we all have worked really, really hard to educate and to create programs like ISR so people have access.

Drowning Prevention Coalition, doing weekend swim courses that they have done, I believe, at the Forest Park Pool. Things to help raise awareness, and we have seen a significant decrease since 2018, since all of those programs were implemented, and the number of kids. That's awesome. Obsolete. No.

But they are definitely so much better. Yeah. And I feel very confident that if we continue to all understand it for what it is and talk about it and be diligent, that we can lower those numbers even further.

Travis: So lifeguard your children.

Kelsey: Lifeguard your children.

Travis: That's cool. Mhmm. Yeah. Think those community partnerships, you know, with local governments, I mean, that stuff's huge.

Kelsey: Right.

Travis: Just this like you said, education is is huge in this in this world. Yeah. You're you're talking about the pools, like a like a country club or a public community pool. I wanna talk about, like, lifeguards for a second. Right?

Because I've

Kelsey: Do you really wanna talk about lifeguards with me? I

Travis: I know there's a lot of good lifeguards out there. But, like, I'm one of these people like you who are constantly worried about everything.

Kelsey: Right.

Travis: And it's very stressful. When I'm driving or when I'm at these pools and like, you know, place I go, the lifeguards look like they're really in the zone, which is great. But over the years, you know, I have seen lifeguards sitting by their pool at a hotel pool or something, and the lifeguard is just a kid, obviously, and they're on their cell phone. Mhmm. Like, just sitting there watching the screen, and they're like, oh, the parents can do it.

Like, what's going on here?

Kelsey: We were at a birthday party last year at one of the country clubs locally. I will not name any names, but we were there, and I was in the water with my I don't know. He's four year old, I guess, at the time. And my husband was close by with the other kids, and I was telling you this story. I watched a little girl ask another little girl to take her puddle jumper off him because they're not allowed to use a certain device or they're not allowed to use the slide, and they have to have it off.

So she took it off Uh-huh. Because the girl said, my mom says it's fine. And I was standing in the water watching it all go down, so, you know, naturally, my ISR and anxiety are kicking in. I'm like, oh my gosh, does this girl know how to swim? And I happened to be standing right underneath a lifeguard in a lifeguard station at the country club.

Mhmm. And this girl went in, and she clearly did not know how to swim, and she did not know how to quickly get to the side. And I'm watching and I'm watching and I've like I said, I've got my four year old in my hands and it dawns on me like she has no idea. And so I go and kinda give her a little booty push off to the side and make sure she's okay. And I looked up and the lifeguard is like slouched down, sunglasses on, like hadn't moved.

And I turned around because my husband like, napping? Yes. My husband's my voice to reason. I'm like, am I overreacting or did that guy see nothing? He's like, oh, no.

He didn't like even look at her.

Travis: Oh gosh.

Kelsey: And so I get her out, and I was like, hey. Like, did you see that? And he's like, what are you talking about? And just, like, total attitude. And like I said, this is not, like, a normal.

I I'm very thankful for a lot of our community lifeguards. Totally. But he literally was, like, leaning back, sunglasses down, and it was right under his feet. And so I don't know if it wasn't in his line of vision. I don't know if his eyes were closed behind those sunglasses.

Mhmm. Whatever it was, he was distracted.

Travis: Yeah. Life it's not a foolproof thing, honestly. It's like, do do you really wanna trust your kids?

Kelsey: And so I'm like

Travis: To that.

Kelsey: They're great. But also Right. You know, and there I think you probably recently saw there's this big argument about a lifeguard. He jumped in and saved a kid. He was supervising a pool, and there weren't very many kids in it, and he's scanning and doing his thing, and he jumped in, and he prevented a kid from drowning.

But the parents were mad that he didn't see the kid sooner, and, like, taking legal action against him. Craziness.

Travis: Oh, wow.

Kelsey: And, you know, they're they're humans too. Yeah. They're not perfect, and you can trust them, and we're so grateful for the great lifeguards that are out there, but I think it's just another reminder to us Yeah.

Travis: Totally.

Kelsey: That it's not foolproof.

Travis: My wife's pulled a kid out of a pool when there were lifeguards present, and the kid slipped in there and it was quiet. Like, as we know, these drownings are very, very quiet and very quick.

Kelsey: So

Travis: quiet. And Anna jumped in and and pulled a kid out. And that's the thing, when you when you have this mindset and you're at these pool parties or whatever and you're thinking about this and you're vigilant, you you will have opportunities to to help kids get out of pools. And whether or not they were going to drown is we you know, we don't know. We don't wanna know the answer to that question.

But we wanna be there for them. And so that water watcher mindset and lifeguarding your children Mhmm. I think is the most powerful thing that we can do.

Kelsey: And I just I always tell people, like, there is nothing more important than your child's life. Like, there's no text message. There's no podcast. There's no InstaReal. None of that.

Yeah. Whatever's distracting you, conversation with your friends, cocktail, mahjong, whatever it is, it's not more important than your child's life. And I think one thing that really needs to be pushed and understood is drowning is a 100% preventable.

Travis: Yep.

Kelsey: It's what in our lives can we say, like, is a 100% preventable? We can't say you can a 100% prevent a car wreck. No. You can't say, like, you can a 100% prevent, like, getting sick, but you can a 100% prevent your child from drowning.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah.

Kelsey: We can take tools.

Travis: We can take this number down to zero.

Kelsey: We can.

Travis: We can. It is preventable. It's doable. Mhmm. It's education, but the education's working.

Kelsey: Mhmm. It

Travis: is. And so and so that is why this podcast recorded today on May 29. So normally, a little behind little inside baseball for you listeners.

Kelsey: Oh, jeez.

Travis: The podcast takes about a week or so to get out published. Right? There's the production and the editing. But I walked in here with you, I'm like, hey, I'm about to piss off my producer and my marketing person. I'll tell them, like, we gotta put this out, like, today or tomorrow.

Alright? So Paul and Elise, May 30 is tomorrow. It's it's it's coming to the end of

Kelsey: of Friday. No no pressure.

Travis: Water safety awareness month.

Kelsey: Yes.

Travis: But summer is here. Right? The pools are open, and summers are the most dangerous time. As I started this podcast with, I'm gonna end it on the same note. Like, we've gotta take action because we can't this is very preventable.

And that's the most tragic part about these stories is, like, if I had just done that or, like, just checked that pool faster, just lock that door, just put my phone away, then I'd have my child back, you know. And I know you hear these stories way too often, but we can take this number down to zero. People like Kelsey are in the are in this fight. Maddie Parker, our local mayor, is doing an amazing job on this. I know a lot of other local people in this world as well, but just around the country, we can take this number down to zero, especially when we talk about our young children.

Because it is the number one cause of of accidental death for for the zero to five year olds, and and we can prevent it. Is there anything else you wanna add? Anything else we forgot? You've you've done a great job so far.

Kelsey: Oh, no. I appreciate you bringing us on to chat about all of this. I think, you know, it goes back to education. It's just so important. Educating your friends, educating your family, not having this cap on your head that thinks that it will never happen to you.

Those are the ones that scare me the most. Yep. Educating your babysitters. You know, I was talking to someone yesterday, she goes, I always just, like, keep my kids alive. And it's a it's a terrible joke, but even I I walked out of my house today, like, keep them alive.

Don't forget about the pool. Yes. Just education. Education. Education.

Help people who don't know. I was in Target yesterday, and it just was out of my mouth before I could even, like, process, and they were hanging up more life jackets in a row than they were the puddle jumpers. And I was like, yay, Target. For the first time in year, we, like, have actually put up life jackets. The Coast Guard approved life jackets.

Wear those all day long as for safety and that especially in those natural water. And if your kid has to have them in the pool, okay. But, like, take it off every once in a while and let them swim and

Travis: But yeah. With you.

Kelsey: I just think that education and, like, being more connected to our kids in every aspect of life has, like, the potential to really impact not only drowning prevention, but a plethora of other things

Travis: Absolutely.

Kelsey: And well-being. Time is short. Mhmm. Our time with our babies is short, and let's just do everything we can to help them and to educate others.

Travis: Absolutely. Kelsey, if folks have more questions for you about ISR specifically and potentially even wanna working with you with with their kids, how can they reach you?

Kelsey: You can reach out to us at info@isrfw.com. We're also on Instagram. Our web page is wwwisrfw.com. Okay. You can also if you're seeing this and you're not in the Tarrant County area, we do have some other instructors in Aledo, Parker County, Weatherford.

But nationwide, if you go to infantswim.com and type in your ZIP code, it will bring up a locator of all the area instructors and access to how to contact them, whether it be phone, email, Instagram, things like that.

Travis: That's awesome.

Kelsey: Happy to help anybody.

Travis: For sure.

Kelsey: We're always looking for more instructors. We have grown here in Tarrant County. I was the only instructor in Fort Worth when I came in 2018. I've since recruited two girls out in Aledo and somebody in Weatherford. We now have people in Mansfield and Arlington.

It's definitely growing. The Metroplex is much more covered than it ever was.

Travis: Oh, that's awesome.

Kelsey: But if you're someone who is passionate about water safety and want to give the gift of swim lessons to kids, we are always training new instructors. Wow. I don't personally do the training. ISR does that, but we can always use more. The more kids we can reach, the better.

It's a

Travis: That's great.

Kelsey: I personally think it's a really great career to not only help save lives but give back, and it's very fulfilling. You get to see the hard work that you put in both as a parent and as an instructor come back tenfold when these kids roll back and take a breath independently for the first time or they call you with a survival story.

Travis: Oh, that's incredible.

Kelsey: That's cool stuff.

Travis: Well, Kelsey, thank you for everything you're doing.

Kelsey: Thank you.

Travis: Keep up the good work, and let's get out here. I know you have some kids

Kelsey: I gotta go teach some babies how to save their lives.

Travis: To your house to jump in the pool. Alright. Stay safe out there, folks, and we'll see you all next time.

Travis: If you liked today's episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review. It really does help us get the word out. As we dive into these important conversations about safety and about community, I'm reminded of why I became a personal injury lawyer in the first place. Every single day, I see people whose lives have been turned upside down because of some accident in one form or another. It's a confusing and overwhelming time, and it can feel impossible for folks to know where to turn.

If you or someone you love have been in an accident like that and you need honest guidance, give us a call. We'll get to know you, get to know your story, and we will be with you every step of the way. Thank you for listening,

Travis: and we'll see you next time.