Meet swim coach Adele Price

Swimming coach, Adele Price has a big task this summer. She is one of the main instructors working with hundreds of children during the school break at the National Sports Council (NSC) summer camp.

The Barbados Advocate spoke briefly with Price on Wednesday before her training session with local lifeguards. She was one of eight lifeguards participating in a life saving course conducted by Royal Life Saving Society Canada member, Patrick D’Almada. Price is one of five female lifeguards in Barbados.

Encourage all to learn Although she is a proficient swimmer, the coach admitted that she did not learn to swim until she was a young adult and encouraged all Barbadians to learn. She added that the six week swimming camp at NSC is one of the most heavily subscribed programmes. With the NSC, Price noted that in addition to swimming, children have an opportunity to participate in other sports. These include body building, cricket, golf and road tennis. According to the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training webpage, registration for the NSC summer camps begin June 22.

Teaching young and old to swim
As a swimming coach, Price teaches not only young people but older individuals as well. She recalled swimming lessons with a student who was in her 70s. With Price’s patience and commitment, her student not only gained the ability to swim but encouraged her friends of a similar age to learn the life skill.

Years of training
At age 42, Price has worked with the NSC since 2008, and prior dedicated eleven years of her career to the lifeguard profession. Price added she was trained by Head of the Barbados Lifeguard Service, National Conservation Commis-sion (NCC), Dave Bascombe. For this swimming coach with a lifeguarding background, her focus was always different than other swimming coaches.

“My aim was never to get you to the other side of the pool, my aim was to make sure that if you have to stop in the middle of the pool, you will still be okay,” said Price.

The International Life Saving Federation reported that 1.2 million people die by drowning annually which is more than two people per minute. Additionally, of these numbers, more than half of the drowning cases are children. The organisation also noted that infants and toddlers are more likely to drown due to “inadequate supervision, an inability to swim, and lack of barriers separating toddlers from pools and other water”. With older people, the International Life Saving Federation highlighted that their reasons for drowning was related to health problems which cause a loss of consciousness and many not knowing how to swim. Also, the Federation stated that the “high drowning rate of older people may be related to difficulties managing emergency situations”.