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Maria Rodriguez, 67, approached the Venice, Florida, YMCA pool deck, then backed away. As with so many other people, earlier traumatic experiences stood in her way, preventing her from

learning to swim despite its numerous benefits. Rodriguez grew up around water on Pico Island, Portugal, but never learned to swim. Though she often went with her brothers to the ocean,

there were no beaches where she lived. The land was rocky, the water was deep, and currents could be strong, so she’d use an old tire as a floatation device when she ventured in. “They

didn’t know I didn’t know how to swim or breathe in the water and how fearful I was,” says Rodriguez, now a grandmother of four grandchildren, ranging from 2 to 8 years old. Affable yet

soft-spoken, Rodriguez describes herself as “nervous, humble and shy.” Those traits were barriers that she had to break through to learn the basics of swimming, after which she started to

gain the confidence she had lost four decades ago. A traumatic experience in her youth made Maria Rodriguez afraid of swimming, but at age 67, she gathered enough courage to sign up for swim

lessons at the YMCA in Venice, Florida. Thomas Simonetti A TERRIFYING PLUNGE In her mid-20s, Rodriguez was at a poolside celebration while visiting a brother in Canada when a partygoer

playfully pulled at the towel she was resting on, causing her to topple down to the bottom of the pool. Someone jumped in to rescue her, but after that, she was always afraid of water. It

wasn’t until her mid-30s that Rodriguez was able to approach the water again, with the encouragement of her second husband, Hector, but she went in only up to her knees. Rodriguez would take

her two sons — now ages 40 and 43 — to the beach and to pools to ensure that they were comfortable in the water. The argument for learning to swim is compelling: Nearly 2,000 people age 50

and older died from unintentional drowning in the United States in 2022, says Tessa Clemens, a health scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Injury

Prevention. That number accounts for nearly half of the 4,000 annual drowning deaths, according to a recent report from the CDC. Drowning death rates among those over 65 have been

increasing for decades, with 15 percent of U.S. adults age 45 to 64 reporting that they don’t know how to swim. For adults 65 and older, that figure is 19 percent. The deaths

disproportionately affect some age, racial and ethnic groups. Rates are consistently highest among males, Black Americans and Native American peoples or Alaska Natives. Some 55 percent of

U.S. adults age 45 to 64 have never taken a swimming lesson; 57 percent of those 65 and older have never done so. Although Rodriquez’s brothers learned to swim, no one in her family had

lessons. WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE After immigrating to the United States in 1979, Rodriguez met her husband. They settled in Middleton, Rhode Island, where she already lived with two children

from a previous marriage. Although she couldn’t swim herself, she got her children into swimming lessons at early ages, and they became competitive swimmers. Rodriguez devoted her adult

life to supporting other family members: as a parent of two sons who became extensively active in their education and after-school activities as an involved grandparent, and assisting her

husband in the success of his financial planning business.  A snowbird, she toggles between living in Venice and Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island — both communities geographically embraced by

water. Although she was often around water with her family, she made sure she was never at the beach or pool with her grandchildren without her husband or sons, who are “awesome swimmers,”

she says. She didn’t talk to them about not being able to swim. “To me, that was something that was painful inside my heart, but the fear and the anxiety of the water overcame the other part

of me that wanted to learn,” she says Swim coach Daved Back gently encouraged Rodriguez to feel safe in the water at the YMCA pool. Thomas Simonetti TAKING THE PLUNGE Watching a video of

her youngest granddaughter getting ready to start swim lessons prompted Rodriguez to face her fear and seek out lessons of her own. She drove to the YMCA in Venice, parked and then drove

away. Finally, she gathered the courage to go back, walk through the door and ask to see the athletic director about swimming lessons.