June 10, 2024: a slow, slow summer

Friends, due to a confluence of factors I won't rehash here, I woke up last week with the sense that I'm now on summer vacation. It's early June, and aside from one week per month blocked with Zoom Pool & Hot Tub Alliance (PHTA) Certified Pool Operator (CPO) classes, I have most of the summer free.

Yes, there's the meeting or special event booked, but I also can't remember the last time in adulthood that I was looking at wide open months on my calendar?!

It's a bit terrifying from a revenue perspective, but I've taken the hint that it's time to slow down, take a break and focus on personal/professional projects. I'm also now able to go back and catch up on a videos recorded (but not edited) during the last few months on the road to Jasper, Denver, Fredericton, Edmonton, etc. This week I'm featuring two new videos on our YouTube Channel.

The video talks you through what may be the first reported drowning fatality in a commercial swimming pool in the UK where lifeguards and drowning detection technology were deployed simultaneously. Spoiler alert: neither system worked, and the man died after experiencing a seizure.

This video provides an update on the Houston entrapment death of Aliyah Lynette Jaico. The exact location of her body hasn't been revealed to us yet, so I take a stab at understanding where the cropped recovery photos were taken in terms of "small pool" or lazy river.

Aliyah's death was a horrible tragedy, and completely preventable. My thoughts and prayers are with her family. This is a case that's really stuck with me professionally, so I plan to return to it again as new facts become available. We need to do better as an aquatic industry.

Thanks for being here this week!

Katie Crysdale
Lakeview Aquatic Consultants Ltd.