Re: Family Reunion

"One teen girl in my family took a dive off the 25 footer and hit her face on some rocks in shallow water. She was extremely lucky; she could've broken her neck, or even severely messed up her face. She did go to the hospital, but she was fine. Another girl slipped and bruised up the back of her legs and behind. You'd think this would've taught them all a lesson, but no, the next day several of them went back for more, including a 17-year-old girl that I am fairly close to and have known since she was very little. If you picture Shirley Temple with dark brown eyes and dark brown hair you will have some idea of what she looked like as a child. In a word: adorable. She's still extremely attractive, I think, with a cute button nose and heart-shaped face. Anyway, she fell on a slippery rock and skinned up her arm and elbow. Again, it could've been a lot worse. I hope these three injuries in two days will dissuade any future adventures.

That same day one of my first cousins, who has three girls and lives very close to me, lost his middle daughter, who is 5. They were going swimming and she got ahead of everyone and then just seemed to disappear. Of course, everyone was frantic until she was found, including yours truly. You have no idea how scary it is to lose track a child in a place like that, which was huge and full of people, not all of whom were relatives. I have even more sympathy now with parents whose children are snatched than I did before; it is an awful experience, even though I wasn't even the girl's parent! Anyway, she had wandered off with another relative as it turned out, an older girl, but no one knew that until she was found some fifteen to twenty minutes later. We had the place on lock-down and all the hotel staff were looking for her."

No compassion about "losing" a child where "not all are relatives". It is really rare for anybody to hurt or snatch a child.

What WAS worrying was that they were going swimming. People would not actively hurt a child, but this does not mean that it would be a priority to keep track of a strange child whose mates they assume to be nearby and in eye contact. Which means that the child might be swimming alone, no one paying attention and the 5F drowning as a result.