Volume 11, Number 2 (October 2018) The Lifesaving Foundation Conference 2018 Booklet of Abstracts

Introduction to Booklet of Abstracts 2018

The Lifesaving Foundation (formerly the Irish Lifesaving Foundation) sponsors an international conference every two years including the most-recently concluded Drowning Prevention and Rescue Research 2018 conference (September 10-13) at the Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth, County Kildare (northwest of Dublin), Ireland.

Thirty presentations by aquatic and law enforcement experts from nine different countries focusing on drowning prevention and rescue research were made over the three and one-half days. Ten presentations came from Irish presenters; eight presentations were from the U.K. (including Northern Ireland); three presenters each came from the U.S. and Australia; two from Belgium, and one each from Italy, Lesotho, Norway, and Spain.

The Lifesaving Foundation decided to accept my invitation to publish the presenters abstracts along with the covers and inside materials as a "special issue" (Vol. 11, Issue 2) of the International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education. Both the Lifesaving Foundation and presenters were pleased to have their written summaries of their presentations available online to an international audience through IJARE.

The published abstracts were not officially blind-reviewed as are all other papers published in IJARE, but they were edited and revised at least twice by the Executive Director of the Lifesaving Foundation, John Connolly, and again by myself in preparing them for publication. We hope you find them interesting and valuable.

Readers of this online abstract booklet should be aware that another "special issue" of fully blind-reviewed full length papers from the Lifesaving Foundation 2018 Conference will be appearing as Issue 4 of this volume. Special issue editors, Richard Franklin (AUS), Kristine DeMartelaer (BELG), and Robert Stallman (NOR), are responsible for assisting me with this special issue. I invite readers to look for these full length papers on drowning prevention and rescue research in Issue 4.