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It’s early evening at the Golden Gate Aquatic Complex and the swimming pools are starting to empty. But out in the wading pool, 2-year-old Ariel Asaro is laughing, playing and generally oblivious to the fact that it’s almost time to leave.

JAKOB SCHILLER / Daily News

Jacob Benoit, 4, left, jumps into the pool at the Bonita Springs Recreation Center on Saturday afternoon under the watchful eye of lifeguard Jacob Farnsworth.

Sitting cross-legged on the pool’s edge, Ariel’s mother, Blanca Nieves, is focused on her daughter.

“She doesn’t want to leave,” Nieves said. “She really enjoys the water. She really enjoys the pool — jumping, running, splashing.”

Now that Ariel is almost 3, Nieves and her husband, Tony Asaro, plan on taking her to local pools more often. They’re also planning to sign her up for a children’s aquatic program at the Golden Gate complex so she’ll be safe and comfortable in the water, and ready to learn to swim, they said.

“When she’s small I keep an eye on her all the time,” Tony Asaro said. “You let them go out like a fishing rod. You let them go out, then you reel them back in.”

With the first day of summer just days away and local schools out until August, many Southwest Florida children and their parents will spend plenty of time at beaches and swimming pools during the next few months. Swimming is a great way to beat the heat, get some exercise and have a great time, health officials said, but any body of water can be hazardous if residents are not careful and prepared.

JAKOB SCHILLER / Daily News

Joey Defibaugh, 12, left, and his brother Eddie Defibaugh, 11, play a game of water basketball Saturday afternoon in the pool at the Bonita Springs Recreation Center.

When it comes to people’s homes, swimming pools are the one thing that parents should be most concerned about, especially if they have children under age 5, said Diane Holm, the drowning prevention coordinator for the Lee County Health Department and the president of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance.

Drowning is the No. 1 cause of death for toddlers ages 1 to 4 in Florida, health officials said, and is one of the leading causes of death for children nationwide.

“Children who are inside the home can go out a door and go into the water,” Holm said. “It’s usually in a family home and it’s usually when somebody has been watching. Even if a child is able to be revived, often times they have lifelong damage.”

The inherent dangers of swimming pools became all too real in North Naples on April 25, when 3-year-old Daniel Silva died in a swimming pool at his family’s home at 6781 Livingston Woods Lane. Around 2:15 p.m. that day Daniel had been playing inside near the sliding glass door while his mother was in another room, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office reported.

Daniel’s mother realized she didn’t hear him playing anymore and saw the door open, authorities said. She found Daniel in the swimming pool not breathing.

Between 2001 and 2004, Florida averaged 465 resident and nonresident drowning deaths per year, the Florida Department of Health reported.

From 2003 to 2005, Lee County averaged 14 unintentional drowning deaths per year, while Collier County averaged eight.

From 2004 to 2006, there were a total of 19 unintentional drowning deaths in Collier County, the Florida Department of Health reported. Two of those deaths were toddlers ages 1 to 4, and two were children ages 5 to 14.

“It’s 19 too many deaths because they are preventable,” said Deb Millsap, director of health education with the Collier County Health Department. “A drowning of any age can occur within seconds. Often parents will say ‘I turned away for five minutes’ and they find a child at the bottom of the pool.”

There’s no one way to prevent drowning. Because of that, Holm recommends parents implement what she calls “layers of protection.”

The first layer, she said, is simply for parents to watch their children intently whenever they are in the water.

“They should never ever get in the water without an adult to watch them,” Holm said. “And secondly they should swim with a buddy.”

Millsap recommends designating at least one adult to be a “water watcher.” One adult should be watching no more than five children at a time, Holm said.

The second layer of protection is to install locks and alarms on all doors and windows that lead to a pool, making sure they’re at least 5 feet high. The goal, Holm said, is to keep children inside the home.

The third layer of protection is for residents to install four-sided isolation fencing around their pools. All homes built after October 2000 need to have at least 4-foot fencing around the pool with no gaps or openings, Holm said.

She recommends a pool be surrounded by fencing on all four sides, and that residents do not use the back wall of their home as one side of the enclosure if possible.

“Sadly, our safety regulations are not where they should be in order to ensure the safety of our children,” Holm said.

The next layer of protection is to teach children to swim, Holm said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t recommend swimming lessons as a primary means of drowning prevention for children younger than 4. But even young children can benefit from classes that introduce them to the water and teach them safety lessons like how to get out of a pool on the side and how to turn around and grab a wall, Holm said.

“Most children who drown are found within 3 feet of safety,” Holm said. “But they don’t have the knowledge or skill to turn around and just grab the wall.”

The YMCA branch at 5450 YMCA Road in Collier County offers swimming lessons for children age 3 to 12 for $55 to $130. The Golden Gate Aquatic Complex has aquatic programs for children as young as 6 months up to 12 years old for $40 to $45.

Children who aren’t strong swimmers should wear a U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket while in the water, Holm said. Parents shouldn’t rely on inflatable rafts and water wings.

“The problem with swimmeys or water muscles or whatever you want to call them is they can pop,” Holm said.

Whether at a pool or at the beach, parents need to know how to perform safe water rescues, Holm said. They should have available a floatation device to throw to a struggling child or a long-handle device to reach out with, she said.

Parents who haven’t been trained as life guards should avoid going into the water to rescue anyone.

“Unfortunately that ends up in a double tragedy because the parent doesn’t know how to swim or the child is so panicked that the child holds the rescuer under water,” Holm said. “The only thing they can think about is getting air.”

People who own a swimming pool also need to know where the pool pump is and how to turn it off should a child get caught in a drain, Holm said.

To prepare for the worst-case scenario, parents should consider learning CPR, Millsap said.

Many local fire departments, including the Golden Gate Fire Control and Rescue District, offer CPR training for residents, Golden Gate fire spokesman Victor Hill said.

Other agencies, like the Red Cross, hospitals and EMS, also may offer classes, he said.

Golden Gate fire typically charges about $30 for a CPR class, Hill said. Knowing CPR can give a parent piece of mind.

“If you have to, God forbid, do CPR, you’ll have the comfort level of being able to administer it,” Hill said. “It’s going to matter. It’s going to make a difference. We want parents to feel they have the means to take care of their children.”

Holm said that as long as people are prepared and take the proper precautions, any trip to a swimming pool or beach can be safe and enjoyable.

“Water is so much fun,” Holm said. “You just need to do it safely. You need to think. You need to use common sense and you need to plan to make it a safe visit.”