Telegram and Gazette

The entire region, it seems, has been enthralled by the narrative of the plucky 7-year-old girl who, apparently kidnapped, throttled and thrown from the I-290 bridge over Lake Quinsigamond in the middle of the night, had the presence of mind not to panic and to swim perhaps 100 yards to a home with a light shining from a window at 4 a.m. and where she was able to take shelter in her soaked pajamas.

A multitude of questions about this case may or may not be answered in the coming weeks, months and perhaps even years. But here’s one question to be answered right here and now:

If your daughter or son, niece or nephew, or grandchild were simply – even gently – put into the waters in the middle of that lake, would they survive?

Do they know how to swim well enough to keep their heads about them and make it to shore?

…

Sharon Henderson, marketing and communications director for the YMCA of Central Massachusetts, has been haunted by the implications of the story about that 7-year-old’s swim across Lake Quinsigamond and is springing to action. A graduate of a Catholic high school in North Carolina that required swimming for graduation, she is as familiar with the statistics as anyone. “I’ve got to do something,” she said on Friday. That something is a pilot program for all second-graders in the city – 12 swimming lessons with certified lifeguards for $30. But even more, she’s going to seek sponsors, individuals, businesses and institutions that will sponsor free lessons for 100 or 200 second-graders each.

“We have got to start somewhere, where not only do they learn how to swim, but learn to be comfortable in the water,” she said. Indeed. It’s an opportunity for a lifetime of healthy recreation. And where children understand their ability and their limits. And learn a skill that might save their life.

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