In October 2012, the Specht family suffered a devastating loss when their 22-month-old son, Richard Edwin-Ehmer Specht, who they called “Rees,” drowned in the pond at their Sound Beach home..

When Rich Specht, 50, was approached two years later to help spread awareness about water safety in his son's honor, he was reluctant at first.

“I felt like a failure,” Specht said. “I said, ‘Why would you want me speaking out about something that I failed to do?’”

But with some persuasion and reflection, the Long Island father ultimately embraced the mission and is focused on sparing other families from a tragedy like the one that took their son.

The accident that claimed Rees' life happened just two days before Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc across Long Island.

“Basically, everything else that everyone else on Long Island was going through, we were going through just magnified by the fact that we had just lost our son,” said Specht said.

When a local landscaper learned about the Spechts’ situation, he volunteered to clear their yard of fallen trees and debris for free, which inspired Specht to perform random acts of kindness in his son’s name.

In 2013, he formed the ReesSpecht  Life Foundation with the mission of encouraging others to "pay it forward" by spreading kindness.

“We did start a foundation in my son’s honor, but it had nothing to do with water safety,” Specht said. "It was in response to the kindness we had received after his passing.”

But the foundation's mission would later expand after Specht met Bobby Hazen, executive director of Stop Drowning Now, a national nonprofit organization that focuses on water safety, at a 2014 fundraiser for Smithtown Children’s Foundation. Both men had been invited to the event because their organizations were being honored.

Christine Fitzgerald, executive director of Smithtown Children’s Foundation, said she had hoped that bringing Specht and Hazen together would lead to a collaboration.

“Our mission statement says bridging the gap and bringing together local businesses, families and neighbors to help as one in times of crisis. So, it just made the most sense,” Fitzgerald said.

At that point, Specht had retired from teaching middle school science in Smithtown, and was dedicating his efforts to cultivating kindness nationwide through his foundation’s school program.

When Hazen first asked Specht to join his cause of promoting water safety and preventing drowning accidents Specht demurred, but Hazen was persistent.

Having worked as a district manager for Saf-T-Swim — where he developed and ran their drowning prevention/water safety division — Hazen observed that people would seek swimming lessons after there were news reports of local drownings.

“I said to the owner of Saf-T-Swim at the time, ‘Why are people calling us after instead of before?’" recalled Hazen, 58, of Shirley.

He discovered while doing research in 2008 that there was no centralized way of delivering the information to parents and caregivers, so he started the Long Island Drowning Prevention Taskforce. 

Specht eventually agreed to work together and helped guide the program, which was renamed End Drowning Now and  last year merged into Stop Drowning Now, when Hazen became executive director.

“Our foundation’s motto was to cultivate kindness,” Specht said. “And really the kindest thing you can do is save a life.”

With Hazen’s knowledge of water safety and Specht’s background in teaching, the pair developed a new program called “ReesSpecht the Water,” designed to teach children the layers of protection in a fun and engaging way, which they presented to many of the schools Specht had worked with through his foundation.

Their programs are now in  elementary schools, as well as daycare centers and pre-schools.

Specht said many parents he speaks with are shocked to learn that drowning is the No. 1 cause of death in children ages 1 to 4 years old.

“Most people think that all you have to do is watch your kids and most parents think they’re good parents. But the thing is, we don’t always watch our kids,” Specht said.

The dearth of knowledge about water safety contributes to the fact that about 4,000 people drown each year in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“When people ask me what took my son from me, my answer is 'ignorance,' ” said Specht, noting that if he had known what he knows now, his son would still be alive.

Back in 2012, heeding their pediatrician’s advice, the Spechts had signed Rees up to start swimming lessons that December, when he would have turned 2. He died months shy of his first lesson. In contrast, their youngest daughter, Melina, now 10, started lessons at 3 months old.

“I could unequivocally say that had Melina found herself in that same situation at 22 months old, I would have found a wet kid,” Specht said.

Partnering with Life Saver Pool Fence, the largest pool fence supplier in the country, Hazen and Specht developed a program in 2018 using the acronym SPLASH (for Safety fencing; Put away toys/ladder; Life jackets; Adults always watching; Swim lessons; and How to help), in which a presenter, along with a polar bear mascot named Splash, interacts with an animated character on the screen.

Taking a cue from the fire department’s use of coloring books to teach kids fire safety, which Specht noticed his own wife reading when Melina brought one home from kindergarten, he decided they also needed a coloring book.

“It reinforces the message from SPLASH and it also has information for parents,” Specht said.

While acknowledging the importance of watching kids, especially around water, Specht warns that supervision can break down and should be supplemented by other protective measures, like removable mesh pool fencing, which he didn’t know existed at the time of Rees’ drowning.

“You don’t sell a car without seat belts, why would you sell a pool without a pool fence?” Specht said.

Though there is a New York State law requiring property owners with a pool or pond to fence in the property at a minimum of 4 feet high, the law doesn’t require isolation fencing around the water itself, notes Hazen, adding that more than 87% of the drownings occur in residential pools.

While there is a state law mandating that each pool must be installed with an alarm, in many instances people remove the alarm once they get their certificate of occupancy, notes Hazen.

As most drowning accidents are due to ignorance, Hazen hopes that incorporating water safety from the moment a child is born can become part of American culture, like it is in Australia, Germany, Switzerland and Finland.

Hoping their drowning prevention message becomes as widely known as fire safety’s “Stop, drop and roll” catchphrase, they’re trying to familiarize everyone with the slogan “Reach, throw, don’t go,” because many people drown while trying to rescue someone else.

They are also promoting clubs through which high school students bring water safety assemblies to elementary schools as a way to earn community service credits.

Rebecca Sharkey, a special education teacher in the William Floyd School District, has used Specht and Hazen's program to create lessons for teachers in the district's six elementary schools to use during Water Safety Awareness Week each May. 

Kids “enjoy learning about it," she said. "It comes with a song to help them remember what the SPLASH acronym means. It gives them scenarios of what to do in certain situations and it gives them the opportunity to share the information with everybody at home to try to make their families more aware of it.”

If she had the opportunity, Sharkey said she would like to expand the program to other districts throughout Long Island.

“At this point, it should be a requirement,” she added.

“We’re very involved with legislation across the country and trying to change legislation,” Hazen said.

He noted that as part of the New York Water Safety Coalition, he and Specht  lobbied lawmakers to pass the Hospital Video Bill, which was signed into law in October 2023 and requires all new parents to watch a video on water safety. They also pushed for an amendment to the state Department of Health’s public health bill, which now adds water safety and drowning into its public service announcement rotation.

Currently, they’re awaiting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature on the “Every Child a Swimmer” bill, which has become law in six other states, where kids registering for pre-K or elementary school are asked whether they know how to swim.

“If the answer is ‘no,’ they are given an information packet that is brought home to Mom and Dad on water safety," Hazen said. They also are connected to a national database through which they can find swimming lessons.

There are bills in front of various state legislatures, including New York, Michigan, Florida and Georgia, to mandate water safety education in schools. Hazen hopes these states will follow Louisiana, which is now the only state with this requirement.

Through all the different initiatives, the goal is to reach kids and their parents throughout early childhood, which they hope will create long-term change.

“Generational change does not take generations to change,” said Specht, adding that bike helmets, once rare, are now almost universally worn.

They are also hoping to include pediatricians in their crusade by having water safety be part of their guidance and recommendations at children's 9-month and 18-month check-ups. To date, Stony Brook Children’s Hospital has made it part of their pediatric program requirements, notes Hazen.

“We think the only way we’re going to change these crazy numbers and have some of these statistics start to drop is education,” said Hazen, adding that they’re hoping their program goes national. “And starting that education at an early age with the elementary age kids is the way to do it.”

Stop Drowning Now/ReesSpecht Life Foundation’s S.P.L.A.S.H. acronym stands for

Drowning prevention recommendations from Hazen:

To learn more, visit: stopdrowningnow.org and reesspechtlife.com.