Kids and Water Safety

Water Safe­ty

Spring has sprung and many of us watch the ther­mo­stat climb with great antic­i­pa­tion of after­noons by the pool or on the beach.   Lis­ten­ing to the radio the oth­er day it was revealed that drown­ing is the 2^nd lead­ing cause of acci­den­tal death among kids, 6^th lead­ing cause of acci­den­tal death among adults in North Amer­i­ca.  More than one in five peo­ple who die from drown­ing are chil­dren 14 and younger. For every child who dies from drown­ing anoth­er 4 received emer­gency depart­ment care for non fatal sub­mer­sion injuries. These sta­tis­tics are stag­ger­ing.  Per­haps what makes this even more tragic…is that many of these deaths are pre­ventable.

Who is most at risk?

Males: near­ly 80% of peo­ple who die from drown­ing are Male.

Chil­dren:  ages 1 to 4 have the high­est drown­ing rates. In 2007, among chil­dren 1 to 4 years old who died from an unin­ten­tion­al injury, almost 30% died from drown­ing.  Fatal drown­ing remains the sec­ond-lead­ing cause of unin­ten­tion­al injury-relat­ed death for chil­dren ages 1 to 14 years

Minori­ties:  Fatal unin­ten­tion­al drown­ing rate for minori­ties is gen­er­al­ly high­er, any­where from 1.3 to 3.1 times high­er than among non minori­ties.

Influ­enc­ing fac­tors?

Lack of Super­vi­sion and bar­ri­ers: Super­vi­sion by a life­guard or des­ig­nat­ed water watch­er is impor­tant to pro­tect chil­dren when they are in the water, whether a pool or bath­tub. But when chil­dren are not sup­posed to be in the water, super­vi­sion alone isn’t enough to keep them safe. Bar­ri­ers such as pool fenc­ing should be used to help pre­vent young chil­dren from gain­ing access to the pool area with­out care­givers’ awareness.5 There is an 83% reduc­tion in the risk of child­hood drown­ing with a four-sided iso­la­tion pool fence, com­pared to three-sided prop­er­ty-line fenc­ing

Among chil­dren ages 1 to 4 years, most drown­ings occur in res­i­den­tial swim­ming pools. Most young chil­dren who drowned in pools were last seen in the home, had been out of sight less than five min­utes, and were in the care of one or both par­ents at the time.

Nat­ur­al Water Set­tings (such as lakes, rivers, or the ocean):  The per­cent of drown­ings in nat­ur­al water set­tings increas­es with age.  65% of drown­ings among those 15 years and old­er occurred in nat­ur­al water set­tings.

Lack of Life Jack­et Use in Recre­ation­al Boat­ing:  Among those who drowned, 9 out of 10 were not wear­ing life jack­ets.  Most boat­ing fatal­i­ties that occurred dur­ing 2008 (72%) were caused by drown­ing with 90% of vic­tims not wear­ing life jack­ets; the remain­der were due to trau­ma, hypother­mia, car­bon monox­ide poi­son­ing, or oth­er caus­es

Alco­hol Use:  Alco­hol use is involved in up to half of ado­les­cent and adult deaths asso­ci­at­ed with water recre­ation and about one in five report­ed boat­ing fatal­i­ties.  Alco­hol influ­ences bal­ance, coor­di­na­tion, and judg­ment, and its effects are height­ened by sun expo­sure and heat.

Pre­ven­tion

How do we pre­vent a loved one becom­ing a sta­tis­tic?  The influ­enc­ing fac­tors tell us what to do and what not to do.   Learn­ing to swim is para­mount.  Par­tic­i­pa­tion in for­mal swim­ming lessons can reduce the risk of drown­ing by 88% among chil­dren aged 1 to 4 years.  Avoid and mod­er­ate alco­hol use near water, wear life­jack­ets, super­vise kids at all times, and install bar­ri­ers to dan­ger areas.

We are for­tu­nate to live in a coun­try where swim­ma­ble water is read­i­ly avail­able.  Using it respon­si­bly can bring great joy and health to every­one.