ORANGE City Council will erect resuscitation signs at Lake Canobolas next week following concerns about water safety.
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With summer just around the corner and more people expected to go swimming, kayaking and canoeing on the lake, councillor Jason Hamling said there needed to be resuscitation signs on hand in case someone got into trouble.
“I had a resident bring this up with me. When you are at the pool, there’s got to be resuscitation signs around,” Cr Hamling said.
“I was out there just having a chat and she said we’ve got a place where people are swimming and I can’t see why we can’t have a couple of signs out there on how to resuscitate an adult or a young child.
“There’s a lot of people that use Lake Canobolas for kayaking and swimming.”
Cr Hamling raised the issue at a council meeting on Tuesday, before the weekend’s drowning tragedy at Ben Chifley Dam when 36-year-old Bathurst man Ben Urquhart drowned after his kayak capsized.
“It’s about prevention in case something does happen, people can get information quite easily,” Cr Hamling said.
“People can be brought to the shore and given CPR.”
Along with resuscitation signage, he said flotation rescue devices should be accessible at the lake to help people if they did get in trouble.
“I go to Avoca Beach on the Central Coast and go walking on the rocks, and on the rocks behind a glass cabinet, they have a buoyancy tube,” Cr Hamling said.
He said swimming lessons should also be compulsory for all students and they should at least know the basics, how to tread water and raise their hands if they did get into trouble.
A council spokesman said the council had the relevant signage in stock and an inspection at the lake would take place next week to determine the most appropriate site for the signs.
According to figures released by Royal Life Saving NSW, of the 266 people that drowned across Australia last financial year, 39 per cent were at inland waterways.
tanya.marschke@fairfaxmedia.com.au