When the weather warms, many people rush to swimming pools and beaches to find a way to beat the heat. While many of these places have lifeguards on duty to help prevent accidents, home pools and some beaches may lack proper oversight. Even at public pools, crowds can make it difficult for a lifeguard to spot a drowning swimmer fast enough.
In any case, it is often children who suffer most drowning accidents, and those accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, are often fatal. The CDC states that from 2005 to 2014, there were about ten fatal drownings per day and for every five of those, one was a child.
Risk factors
Children are often most at risk because they do not have the skills to safely navigate the water and avoid potential hazards. It is most common for fatal accident victims to be under the age of four. A third of all deaths for children age four and under is drowning.
It also appears that males have a higher likelihood of death than females, and minorities, most often African Americans, also have a higher chance of drowning.
Prevention
Preventing drowning deaths in children is much easier to do when parents teach their children how to swim. According to NJ.com, the mayor of one New Jersey town is providing free swimming lessons to the public to help combat the problem. Knowing how to swim can greatly reduce a child’s risk of drowning and it often provides them with a better sense of how dangerous water can be so that they avoid situations where they could suffer an injury.
