POTOMAC, Md. — As we head into the Memorial Day weekend, a warning about water safety.
This comes less than a day after an 18-year-old went missing in the Potomac River -- search crews have yet to find him. WUSA9 heard from experienced parents who are preparing their young ones for the worst-case scenario.
"Whenever you're ready," father, Adam Hartman said.
Father and daughter bonding looks different for Adam Hartman and his daughter Rachel Hartman.
"Woah, that was a really good one,” Hartman said. “I barely had to help."
The 12-year-old is learning from her father about the best ways to stay above the water on the Potomac River.
"This is one the first skills you really want to learn as a kayaker," Adam Hartman said.
Rachel is working on getting her position right as she dives deeper into kayaking.
"If you happen to flip over you have to know how to roll your boat, so she's learning how to roll,” Hartman said. "You are upside down, you're completely disoriented, you're holding your breath, your eyes are closed, so it's tough."
The training has a deeper plunge to me.
"It's a lot of practice, right you need to do this over and over again to get muscle memory,” Hartman said. “So, when you’re in the danger area and you get flipped over, you'll be able to recover quickly."
These life lessons come less than 24 hours after a man reportedly drowned after trying to swim from one side of the river to the other. Friday night Montgomery County swift water rescue started their search but have not located him yet.
"We really hope this situation turns out for the best, but any situation where something goes wrong there's something to learn from it so we definitely pay attention to it,” father, Chad Dear said.
Dear is out on the water with his kids and other family friends. He’s using this moment to remind his kids of how important it is to plan routes and know the river levels.
"A couple of us have taken swift water rescue training classes and we try, and our kids have not yet taken those classes, but we try and pass on that knowledge," Dear said.
They have everything you could possibly need.
"You'll see my PFD, personal flotation device that we're all wearing,” Dear said. “We're going through some water rapids, so we wear helmets."
Now they’re all ready and set to paddle down and across state lines.
"There's a lot of fun that you can have on rivers if you know some of the basic safety concepts and practice some of it,” Dear said.
"It's beautiful out here,” Hartman said. “So just love coming out here, spending the afternoons."
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