Extra Vigilance Necessary with 3-Meter Diving Boards

Diving rarely enters the national spotlight, but with a focus on U.S. divers at the 2012 Summer Olympics beginning later this month in London, children may approach 3-meter springboards at local aquatic facilities with added curiosity. Consequently, pool operators must be extra vigilant. Relics from the '60s and '70s, the boards — typically accessed by 10-foot ladders and not always off-limits to recreational swimmers — need to be restricted for swimming and diving team use only, according to one aquatics safety expert who has studied springboard diving safety.

"We're just seeing far too many catastrophic falls from these things, off the ladder to the deck," says Tom Griffiths, president of Aquatic Safety Research Group in State College, Pa. "There's not a playground in America where you allow children to freely climb a vertical ladder 10 feet over concrete. But we allow this regularly in aquatics."

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