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At the close of the Troup County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, Commission Chairman Patrick Crews took a brief moment to reiterate the importance of life jackets.

“We’ve had two very near tragic deaths in our community in the last couple of weeks on drowning here in some of our parks. As far as I know, both of the people involved did survive, but we were very scared,” Crews said, noting it’s especially bad when a young person possibly dies.

“I have a family. I’ve got children. I’ve got grandchildren. Of course, they look to me and ask, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ and ‘What can we do about it?’” Crews said.

The greatest thing the county can do is just stress to parents the importance of wearing a life jacket, especially if their children don’t know how to swim or aren’t strong swimmers, Crews said.

“We can put life jackets out there but we can’t put them on people. People have to step up and if it’s young children, the parents have got to take responsibility,” Crews said. “Guardians have to step up and do the right thing and make sure that those young kids have a life jacket and if they can’t swim, they need to keep a close eye out.”

Crews said the county is pleased that they are able to offer swimming lessons now that the pool at the William Griggs Center has opened.

“That will help some, but it certainly won’t protect everyone, so let me just encourage everyone out there to please wear life jackets if they can’t swim,” Crews said.