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Computer saves girl from drowning
Monitoring system raises the alarm in three seconds

By Steve Ranger

Published: Thursday 01 September 2005

A young girl has become the first swimmer in the UK to be saved from drowning by a computerised pool monitoring system.

The accident happened last Wednesday afternoon when a 10-year old girl in Bangor swimming pool in North Wales sank to the bottom of the deep end.

The Poseidon monitoring system installed in the pool registered that a swimmer was in distress because she was at the bottom of the pool and not moving, and within three seconds sounded the alarm to the lifeguard on duty who pulled the girl out of the water. See the pictures from the system's cameras here.

The girl was resuscitated and taken to a hospital, where she recovered. Less than 40 seconds elapsed from the system alert of the drowning to the victim being pulled from the pool.

Gwynedd Council installed the system at the pool for £65,000 two years ago. Built in the 1960s, the 33 metres long pool ranges in depth from 1.1 to 3.8 meters, making it one of the deepest in Wales.

The system alerts lifeguards that something suspicious is happening in real time and notifies them of the exact location of the incident. It comprises a network of cameras mounted both above and below water level to monitor swimmers' trajectories.

François Marmion, general manager of Vision IQ, the company which developed Poseidon, said in a statement: "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".