World renowned researchers in the area of drowning are attending a conference in Waterford at the moment.
Topics such as 'how the climate crisis will impact drowning figures' are set to be discussed over the course of the event, which finishes tomorrow.
It's being run by The Lifesaving Foundation and organised by local man John Connolly.
He says it's the first in-person conference on the issue being held worldwide since the pandemic:
"Ireland was starting to come out of the lockdown and I just made the decision. I said, 'Ok, we're going to hold an in-person conference and you're going to have to come to Waterford. We will do this.'
"And it worked. We will have about 30 of the world's leading researchers.
"There will be representatives from the RNLI, the European Regional Manager of the World Health Organisation is attending, and we've a number of professors."
John is also the author of a very well-received book called 'Why Swimmers Drown'.
Continuing, he explained that future flooding will be one of their main topics of discussion at the conference:
"The first two days are focused on the research aspect of it, so we're looking at the impact of global warming - climate change - on drowning numbers.
"Already there's this large increase in flooding and one of the questions we will look at is how we educate members of the public about how to deal with flooding, without having to send them on a course."
A brochure for the conference can be found here.
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