Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Japanese girl dies in possible drowning at Guam beach
HAGATNA, Guam©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
8 Comments
Login to comment
maxjapank
@decendent
There is not enough information in the article for me to completely blame the parents. I'll take your word that it's a super shallow safe place for children. I also don't know how many people were there. Noone noticed her? For 30 minutes? And the parents lost track of her? It's just strange...the circumstances. But again, I wasn't there. And I don't know all the information. But I can tell from my experience, that I have watched over numerous Japanese kids because the mother's were chit-chatting and not watching them. There seems to be a culture here of letting your kids go wherever and do whatever they want. At least somtimes.
descendent
Cue the "blame the parents" horde again.
As another poster said above, sometimes accidents happen. The definition of the term "accident" implies it was unforseen.
I've been to this beach, it's a super shallow, sandy-bottomed protected beach (i.e. no waves) where you can wade out for a good 50-100m. I can see how the parents would have felt it was relatively safe with an 8 year old.
Zimiz
Well its easy to blame the parents, and thats exactly what im gonna do! How can you let yout child alone in the water. I hope this wannabe parents wont gonna try again...so often read from childs falling out of windows and gettinf hit by cars, cause parents do not watch their children.
slumdog
? Japan is an island nation surrounded by seas that people swim in all the time.
Pandabelle
Those poor parents must feel horrible. So difficult...
Bogi
Never take your eyes off your children in unfamiliar territory. Very few Japanese children have experience with swimming in the sea. Some may call this an accident, but I call it negligence.
maxjapank
Accidents happen. Sometimes no matter how careful you are, things just happen. But I have never let my daughter play in the water without being with her. Even if I gave her a little space to be with her friends, my eyes never left them.
shonanbb
Terrible. No kids should swim alone.