Child Safety Blog

A South Carolina boy named Johnny Jackson drowned more than an hour after he got out of the swimming pool.

How was this possible? Water can remain in the lungs after leaving the pool, and its presence in the lungs prevents the brain from getting enough oxygen. Left untreated, this eventually causes death.

Not many people know about this phenomenon, which is known as "dry drowning." And the symptoms can be hard to spot. From the article:

According to the latest figures, about 3,600 Americans died from drowning in 2005, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including a small percentage that die up to 24 hours later because of water entering the respiratory system. A not insignificant number of the victims are children who died after having a bath.

Dr Daniel Rauch, pediatrician at New York University Langone Medical Center, who spoke to Meredith Vieira on the TODAY show, said there are three important signs that parents and carers should look out for: difficulty breathing, extreme tiredness, and changes in behaviour. All three symptoms result from the brain not getting enough oxygen because of water in the lungs.

Those three symptoms can be easily mistaken for the ordinary after-effects of energetic play, as Dr. Rauch also points out. Therefore it is a good idea to be on the look-out for these symptoms after a child has spent time submerged in water and take the child to the emergency room if he or she has them.