Johnny Jackson, a 10-year-old boy from South Carolina, died at home on Sunday from “dry drowning” more than an hour after going swimming and walking home with his mother. The sad event highlights a little known danger that parents and child carers should be aware of, that drowning can kill hours after being submersed in water.
Johnny’s mother, Cassandra Jackson, told NBC News…that: “I’ve never known a child could walk around, talk, speak and their lungs be filled with water.”
Johnny must have got some water in his lungs while he was swimming in his local pool at Goose Greek, South Carolina. He didn’t show any signs of respiratory distress, but he had an accident in the pool and “soiled himself”, said the TODAY report. He then walked home with his mother and sister.
His mother said she bathed him and he told her he felt sleepy. When she went to check on him later she saw his face was covered in a “spongy white material”. He was rushed to hospital but it was too late.
According to the latest figures, about 3,600 Americans died from drowning in 2005…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.
Read the whole article. Remember the symptoms. Hopefully, you’ll never need to respond to an emergency like this.
Thanks, K B
Nobody will believe this, but I remember an episode of Baywatch – yup, that Baywatch – where the team rescued someone from near drowning and with the person conscious and apparently well, they still took him/her – don’t remember – to the hospital as he/she could still have water in the lungs and die subsequently!
There, I learned something useful on Baywatch, and I’m not kidding!
That sure is a very sad story.
Wow.. sad. I’ve never heard of this before. I hope it doesn’t scare parents from preventing their children from learning to swim, and enjoying themselves outside.
#1- I remember that episode and was thinking about it as I read this story-good memory buddy.
Seems like “you were in the water, so you have to go to the hospital” was a common line on Baywatch.
OTOH, who listened? 🙂
Regards.
Cough.
Sorry, but this is NOT the saddest story of the week.
This one is, and happened only a short distance from where I live.
http://tinyurl.com/5e97lc
While I completely sympathize with the family of this child, I can’t help but remember, there’s a reason why we have all been shocked by this story. It doesn’t happen very often, thank God.
However, the hysteria surrounding this story this week has been astronomical. The actual chances of this happening to ANYONE you know is very, very minute. But will that stop parents across this nation from freaking out about this and over coddling their child, some to the point that they won’t even allow their children to swim in the first place? Of course.
On a scale of 1 to 10 of things to be worried about in life, dry-drowning has to rank in the low 1’s.
I remember this was a problem with salt water. Didn’t know it was caused by pool water too. If I remember correctly if you got salt water in you lungs, you body would try to get rid of it by adding more water.