Safe Haven Law Offers Alternative To Public Pools During Winter Months, Parents Say

Story by Carson Vaughan 

| Published Nov 25, 2008

Although the effects of its recent senate reformation remain to be seen, Nebraska’s original Safe Haven Law provided a convenient alternative to recklessly abandoning children of all ages at community swimming pools, say parents from Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Georgia, and Florida.

“We can throw away our kids without thinking twice during the summer. The pools are still open!” said Lincoln native Judith Herzelbeck, 39, now a happy mother of just two hopeless children. “But what are we supposed to do with ‘em in the winter? I had to wait almost an entire year to drop the second one [child] into the hands of the Woods Pool staff.”

The Nebraska Safe Haven Law is intended to allow parents to anonymously discard their children at designated hospitals without prosecution. Without the seasonal constraints placed on outdoor public swimming pools, hospitals participating in the Safe Haven program provide more convenience for the parents, allowing them to desert, forsake and embarrass their children during the hours and seasons that fit their schedules.

“Quite frankly, we welcome the competition,” said Cory Willis, 54, president of the National Swimming Pool Foundation. “The more parents use the new law, the less time we spend raising children. We train our lifeguards in water safety, first aid and CPR, not baby-sitting and child therapy.

“If I could only count the number of times I’ve had to explain to a crying, lost little boy that his parents probably wouldn’t be picking him up because he’s an emotional and financial burden to his already strung-out parents….”

Municipal swimming pools have long been considered the cheapest and most convenient way to have someone else take care of your kids, said Willis, whose term as NSPF president ends this February.

And with handfuls of underqualified teenage lifeguards on duty, public pools ensure the safety of abandoned children until closing hours each night.

“When I left my only child at the pool I didn’t even feel guilty about it,” said Sharon Jensen, 30, formerly a mother from Plattsmouth, Neb. “All the other kids there were having a blast.”

But most public pools in Nebraska operate solely during the summer months, leaving parents no safe options for negligence and abandonment past late August. Until the passage of the Safe Haven Law last July, parents were left with no choice but to keep the breathing children in their very own homes throughout the winter.

“It was hard,” Jensen said, “really hard. My husband Jeff and I had to watch that baby crawl around all winter, and by the time the pool opened again we nearly second-guessed our decision.”
Citing America’s current financial crisis, many city councils, including Lincoln’s, have voted to cut funding for their local public pools altogether, instead offering more Safe Haven hospital drop zones.

“It only makes sense,” said Doug Emery, vice-chair of the Lincoln city council.

“Since Nebraska passed the Safe Haven law, regulars to our public pools have dropped nearly 60 percent. Pools aren’t for the kids anymore. They’re for the parents, and the parents only need to see the parking lot.”