PLEASE, OH PLEASE...WEAR A LIFE JACKET!

This weekend is going to be beautiful! After an eternity of cooler weather and rain, Sacramento is overdue for some warmer weather and this weekend promises to be it!

Along with the warm weather comes the beach lovers. Sacramento has no shortage of beaches. We are a river city with the American River meeting the Sacramento River right in the middle of downtown. People swarm to these beaches to enjoy the sun, the water and family.

And, every single year, despite continued warnings from a multitude of organizations to wear your life jacket, people drown. There are even "loaner" life jackets that people can borrow, so there is no expense involved...and they still drown. As much as I would like to believe that we will get through this coming weekend with everyone having a great time and doing so safely, history has not proven this to be the case.

We have an agent in our office who heads up a non-profit group called D.A.R.T. (Diving and Rescue Team). By the time they get called, there usually is a missing body. He tells stories of while they are looking for a missing kid who used a rope swing to drop into the middle of the river, there are other kids still using the rope swing with no life jacket. One family overloaded their fishing boat and to be sure that the baby wouldn't go overboard, tied it's life jacket to the boat. So, when the boat tipped over, the baby was stuck under it and couldn't float to the surface.

So, please people, wear a life jacket. Being alive is way cooler than being dead.