Rochdale Girl Saved by Drowning Detection System

Date published: 01/09/2005

A 10 year old girl from Rochdale has been saved from drowning, by a computer detection system.

The computer alerted lifeguards that the girl was about to die, and she was scooped up seconds later from the bottom on a 12ft swimming pool. The youngster, who was holidaying in Wales with a charitable trust, was swimming with friends at Bangor baths when she came into trouble. She eventually lost consciousness and began sink to the bottom of the pool.

The £65,000 system is designed to detect unusual activity, and immediately alerted lifeguards that the girl was in serious danger, and it is almost certainly responsible for her recovery.

How it works

With the aid of cameras situated below the water-line, the Poseidon computer detected that the girl was immobilised and it took just 3 seconds for the system to trigger the alarm and alert the lifeguard on duty. The entire incident was over in 62 seconds as the girl was rescued by the lifeguard and pulled out of the water. She was taken to hospital and has since made a full recovery.

Rochdale Online reporter Jan Harwood, spoke to François Marmion, General Manager of Vision IQ, the company which developed Poseidon. He said, “The system is capable of detecting a human in distress. It tells us a person is motionless in less than 10 seconds and when it sees this, it triggers an alarm to the lifeguard. It shows the situation of the person so the lifeguard can dive where the computer has mentioned. In Bangor the reaction was very quick, taking just 3 seconds from the time the girl had descended.”

“It took 6 years to develop the system and we’re glad that it is now being used to prevent accidents. It is virtually impossible for lifeguards to see everything that is happening in the pool all of the time, given the warm, noisy and crowded environment in which they typically work.”

Campaigns are now taking place to increase the use of Poseidon in public baths and after this incident involving a local teenager, councils are being urged to install the system in their pools. Hundreds of people drown in public baths each year but that amount could be significantly reduced with the installation of a system that alerts lifeguards that something suspicious is happening in real time and notifies them of the exact location of the incident.