We had a terrible experience at the Waedenswil Strandbad yesterday. My 22 year old niece was swimming from the diving board platform to the green trampoline. Normally she's a very good swimmer but she got a leg cramp halfway and then became intimidated by the distance and started drowning. Luckily I was watching from the shore but I couldn't jump in to help because I was holding my 1 year old daughter. I looked behind me but the Badimeister was not in the lifeguard chair. I ran around trying to find a SOS button to press but I couldn't find one anywhere. I started screaming "help help!" But no one would help me. Finally a brave man heard me screaming and ran into the water to help. My niece had gone under 3 times by this point. Then the Badimeister came running too from the entrance cashier office and jumped on the surfboard and paddled out to her too. The brave man reached her first and dragged her to the green trampoline and saved her. It was so horribly frightening I'm still shaking writing this. We spoke to the Badimeister (who was also very shaken up) after we calmed down and asked him why he was not watching the water. He said that he also has to work at the entrance taking money and he cannot be watching all the time. After much discussion with him on how we see this same situation at all the Strandbads and Hallenbads, we all agreed that there should be additional staff members at the waters in Zurich - life guards on duty all the time watching the water, because the Badimeister has other things he must do too, besides watching the water. In fact, he said the same thing happened in the same spot last summer. I was really lucky this time because I was watching. But often parents cannot be watching all the time because they may have children who are different ages and different level swimmers and at different places at the Strandbad or in different pools. Every year we hear a horror story from the lake. Last year one boy jumped off the high diving board on another boy and drowned him. Another year a young girl fell in the pool and drowned on her way to her swim lesson. There are many drownings each year in Switzerland. These horrible accidents can so easily be avoided if there were lifeguards at the water's edge watching all the time. It is not an expensive cost either. You can get young University Students to do this and pay them Ch15-20 per hour. So I'm writing today to ask you to help us please make a change in Zurich to make it mandatory to have lifeguards at all the Badis (Strandbads and Hallenbads) in Zurich.