Wake-up call for the world

Most of you have not seen a real picture of a drowned toddler before but he wasn't the only one that drowned. I was listening to the father tell the story of this and how it happened. It appears they were launching their boat to go to Greece or one of the islands there from Turkey and the waves were too big from the beach so when the waves turned the boat over the mother and children all drowned. The father tried to save the mother and children but they drowned and he alone survived this in the end.

This is a really awful story of the desperation of families from Syria and other war torn localities now. It symbolizes the strife people are experiencing and their absolute desperation and the evidence of this is the corpse of this dead little boy.

It's possible that only the father and the smuggler could swim and if you have ever seen people panic in a swimming pool let alone in ocean waves that can't swim it is pretty grim. The smuggler who misjudeged the surf got away by the way and the father who obviously could swim or he would be dead too survived to tell the tale.

I remember the first time I thought I was going to die for sure I was 8 years old and I couldn't swim yet. I was riding on an inflatable raft with my 15 year old female cousin who is now passed away at Zuma Beach near Los Angeles and Santa Monica. We were taken out by a rip tide current and 5 lifeguards came to rescue us from the beach, my two 13 year old male cousins and I at age 8 and my 15 year old female cousin who was watching over me. But, not being able to swim and having to give up my inflatable raft for one of those crazy looking orange floats the lifeguards tow behind them was really hard for me. And even then, it took over 1/2 hour or more to get back in and the life guards were really exhausted while my uncle lay asleep on the beach. He missed the whole thing.

I was 8 in 1956.

The other thing is that when waves turn a boat over in surf often the boat hits people in the head and they are immediately unconscious if they are not very quick and coordinated and used to being around oceans and surf. It is possible that this mother and children had never ridden on the ocean before which would also explain why they are dead now along with likely not being able to swim.