Drowning doesn’t look like drowning
If you ever take your children near water and haven’t seen this article, please click over and read it. I’ve seen it posted and reposted many places now, but it’s one of those articles I don’t think can be reposted too many times. It has a lot of important information that I didn’t know. The most eye-opening part of this article, for me, was this:
To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).
A friend of mine made a comparison to labour and birth: any of us in the natural birthing community know that labour doesn’t look anything like what they try and show on TV. The same holds true, apparently, for drowning. I didn’t realize that someone who is drowning could have their head above water. I didn’t know there wouldn’t be any thrashing or yelling. In fact, he makes the point that to the untrained eye, a drowning person often looks like they are just treading water.
And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
One other point not discussed in the article but that I think bears mentioning is snorkel or scuba equipment and kids. While many kids love to don scuba masks and play around in the water with them, they can be dangerous. From what I’ve read, many of the snorkels made for kids don’t allow much oxygen to make it into the mask, so the CO2 alone can be dangerous. A mask that doesn’t fit quite right can let water in and a child who is not getting a lot of oxygen could take a deep breath and get a mouthful of water, or if they let the tube go under water momentarily the same thing could happen. Dry drowning is another potential risk. This isn’t to say children should never be allowed to use this equipment, but parents should be very aware when they are using it. After all, many children will put their heads under water face down so just the tube is sticking out above the water, and now that I’ve read the article above I can see how it would be very easy to miss that a child doing this was actually in trouble. In fact, a young girl drowned in a lake nearby last year while wearing a snorkel mask. There were life guards and many other people around her at the time. Children should also be informed about what to do if any water does get in the mask.
Living as close to a lake as we do now, I appreciate having this information, and hope it helps someone else out there as well.
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This article was chilling. It made me physically ill to think about it the possibility, especially since my parents have a pool. I think everyone in the whole world should read that article.