Bourne Leisure, one of the largest providers of holidays and holiday home ownership in the UK, has bought dozens of Pool Rescue Manikins to help train its lifeguards.
The revolutionary dummies will be used to train over 500 lifeguards at 57 of their sites around the country.
Bourne Leisure welcomes more than 4 million families to their parks, resorts and hotels every year. Their brands, which include Butlin’s, Haven Holidays and Warner Leisure Hotels, are amongst the most respected within the UK holiday market.
The first of a series of training days for 60 of the company’s managers were held at Thoresby Hall in Nottingham.
The Pool Rescue Manikins are the latest rescue training dummies to be launched by Ruth Lee Ltd. They were developed with assistance from the water safety charity The Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) and have been tested extensively by RLSS UK trained lifeguards.
The 30kg manikins provide a realistic tool for lifeguards to simulate the rescue of a real person who is potentially drowning. They can be thrown into a pool where they quickly sink to the bottom but retain enough buoyancy to be towed effectively.
Craig Valentine, Health and Safety Manager for Bourne Leisure, which has purchased 38 Pool Rescue Manikins, said:
“As a company we pride ourselves on maintaining the safety of our guests and our people who use and work in our facilities.
“We operate 130 swimming pools around the country and it is vital that our lifeguards train on the most cutting edge technology that is available. The Pool Rescue Manikins appealed to us because they are so realistic and we can use them in place of human volunteers in a variety of emergency pool scenarios.”
Sarah Hampson, Marketing Communications Manager from Ruth Lee Ltd, which is based in North Wales and is a leader in the design and manufacture of rescue training manikins, said:
“We are delighted to be providing Bourne Leisure with our Pool Rescue Manikins.
“Our manikins provide lifeguards with a realistic challenge which also allows them to learn how to safely manoeuvre people in distress in water.
“Our product brings together different elements of lifeguard training, allowing trainees to seamlessly practice different techniques without needing to switch between different equipment or live volunteers.
“Saving lives is a subject very close to our hearts and the leading driver in all the products we create.”
Ruth Lee Ltd has also seen its Pool Rescue Manikins snapped up by lifeguards in 17 countries including the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Malaysia, Estonia, Spain, Brazil and Iceland.
In the UK, drowning is one of the leading causes of accidental death in children and every year in the UK and Ireland more than 700 people drown. Hundreds more have near-drowning experiences, sometimes suffering life-changing injuries.
Watch the Pool Rescue Manikin in action
https://youtu.be/dgYPaeTu09M - General
https://youtu.be/viP_Z4in7pM - What Lifeguards Think
https://youtu.be/MffRKeKl190 - 5m test in Sydney Olympics Swimming Pool
About the Pool Rescue Manikin
- Carefully designed and tested to create realistic buoyancy – it will sink, yet is buoyant enough to float when being towed. It will feel like an ‘unconscious’ person in the water.
- A more realistic challenge compared to using live volunteers who may try to subconsciously ‘assist’ the trainee.
- The use of a manikin can reduce the need to use volunteers in training scenarios, avoiding potential injury and any embarrassment caused by close personal contact.
- Greatly improves performance – trainers can easily spot weaknesses such as slow towing, as the manikin’s legs will start to sink if a consistent speed is not maintained.
- Flexible arms, reinforced with strong webbing allow the arms to be raised aloft, letting lifeguards practice hauling the ‘victim’ from the water using correct lifting techniques.
- No need to switch from plastic dummy to real volunteer part way through training – this manikin can be fetched from the bottom of the pool, towed to the side and recovered from the water – promoting more realistic and more effective training, ultimately making lifeguards even better.
- Constructed using a reinforced nylon mesh which allows water ingress, meaning the manikin will sink when placed in water.
- Mesh allows for ventilation and rapid draining when the manikin is retrieved from the water.
- Our range of Water Rescue manikins have been designed in consultation with experts in the industry, including the Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK), Royal Navy, Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Surf Life Saving Australia.