After tragedy touched his life, David Thomas of Mathews decided to turn grief and despair into something that would benefit others.

He created a coloring book about water safety that children could identify with, had it printed out of his own pocket, and is distributing it free of charge to anyone and everyone who wants a copy.

Thomas wouldn’t talk about the tragedy that led to his artistic efforts, but he said that the idea of a coloring book began when he talked to friends about what had happened in his personal life, and they shared their stories with him about incidents that could have or, in some cases, actually did result in similar tragedies.

Thus, Thomas’s coloring book has an illustration that demonstrates ladder safety after he talked to someone who had stepped on a badly maintained dock and had fallen and broken three ribs. And there’s an illustration of a snowman in sleet to show that snow makes docks slippery, inspired by a story about three men who ended up in c...