Summer has arrived, and UCLA emergency physicians would like to remind parents how to prevent drownings and water-immersion injuries involving children.
These unfortunate and heart-wrenching events most often occur in the summer months, which are filled with water activities.
In Los Angeles County, approximately 70 percent of child drownings occur during June, July and August, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Most of these tragic events occur in private backyard swimming pools. More than two-thirds of toddler-age children who were found in pools or spas were thought to have been elsewhere in the house, either sleeping or playing.
“Drowning remains the leading cause of accidental death among toddlers ages 1 to 2,” said Dr. Larry J. Baraff, professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “One of the most preventable causes of death, this tragedy can be avoided with just a few simple precautions.”
In the past five years, there were, on average, 2,200 children younger than 5 years old treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments for swimming pool submersion injuries and 280 pool-related drowning deaths per year. Ninety percent of these deaths occurred at home.
Parents should follow these 10 basic rules to prevent a child drowning: