William Douglas was thrown into the pool by a muscular boy. He got frightened but did not lose his wits. He was suffocating and grew panicky. The nine-feet deep pool looked like ninety feet deep. He thought to blab to the surface like a cork but he moved slowly In the end he made a plan to come up to the surface by making a big jump when his feet touched the bottom.

The haunting fear of the water followed Douglas in his fishing trips, swimming, boating and canoeing. To get rid of this fear, he finally engaged an instructor who practised him five days a week, an hour each day. He held one end of the rope in his hands and the other end through a pulley overhead of Douglas. It was tied to the belt with the rope. He made Douglas swim back and forth in the pool.

After three months of training, the instructor taught Douglas to put his face under water and breathe out, and to raise his nose and breathe in. He repeated this exercise hundreds of times. Bit by bit he got rid of the terror that gripped him. Then he held Douglas at the side of the pool and made him kick himself with his own legs. After weeks of doing this practice, he could command his own legs of swimming in water.

Thus piece by piece, the instructor built a swimmer and perfected him in every way.

At the age of ten or eleven William O. Douglas decided to learn and swim at the Y. M.C. A. pool because it was only two or three feet deep at the shallow end. He had an aversion to the water but he felt comfortable when he paddled with his new water wings in the water. One day he went to the pool when no one else was there. He was waiting for others to come. Then there came a big bruiser of a boy and yelled; “Hi, skinny! How’d you like to be ducked ?” With that he picked Douglas and tossed him into the deep end. He landed in a sitting position, swallowed water and went at once to the bottom. He feared to be drowned. This misadventure caused a last of trouble to Douglas

After his misadventure in the pool, Douglas wanted to get into the waters of the cascades but the old fear overpowered him. His legs would become paralysed and icy terror would grab his heart. He could not enjoy the sports games like canoeing, boating and swimming. He tried to get rid of this fear yet it held him in its firm grip. So he decided to was keen get over his fear of water by engaging an instructor.

He feared water and whenever he went back to the pool, terror seized him. A slightest exertion upset him. He avoided water as far as he could . As and when he tried to enter water, the stark fear would seize him. His legs became paralysed and icy terror would grab his heart.