According to the Centers for Disease Control, some 3,600 people drowned in 2005, the most recent year for which there are statistics. Some 10 to 15 percent of those deaths was classified as "dry drowning," which can occur up to 24 hours after a small amount of water gets into the lungs. In children, that can happen during a bath.
(See comments for discussion of "dry drowning" vs. "secondary drowning."
And this is what happened just now to 10 year old Johnny Jackson of South Carolina. He was swimming for the first time. In retrospect, he did exhibit some worrying symptoms or behavior, but not anything anyone would really recognize ... like feeling tired.
He did in fact take a name. Later, his mom...
went into his room to check on him. "I walked over to the bed, and his face was literally covered with this spongy white material," she said. "And I screamed."
A family friend, Christine Meekins, was visiting and went to see what was wrong. "I pulled his arm and said, 'Johnny! Johnny!' " Meekins told NBC. "There was no response. I opened one of his eyes and I just knew inside my heart that it was something really bad."
Johnny was rushed to a local hospital, but it was too late. Johnny had drowned, long after he got out of the swimming pool.
Extereme tiredness, difficulty breathing, and nonspecific "changes in behavior" are the main symptoms to look for.
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This isn't actually dry drowning but rather secondary drowning.
Dry drowning is where the lungs are unable to take oxygen in from the air. In the context of actually drowning, it is common when someones lungs close off due to the shock of sudden immersion in cold water. It is called dry because little to no water actually enters the lungs - the person suffocates rather than drowns.
This is the reflex that waterboarding uses to invoke the sensation of drowning. By making your lungs close themselves off they can make a little water go a long way towards killing you.
Secondary drowning is the one that is absolutely terrifying (particularly as a lifeguard). A small amount of water can cause irritation and gradual collapse of the lung. It normally comes after a near drowning incident (even near secondary drowning incidents can cause it, so long as some water did enter the lung before the reflex cut it off).
I don't know whether it was MSNBC who got this mixed up or if the CDC use different definitions to other groups.
Oh, and if you weren't quite scared enough, it is 72 hours, not 24.
Also I believe that 10% figure is for true dry drowning, not secondary drowning. That suggests that both MSNBC and the expert were getting their terms confused when they were reporting on this. The medicine is right, the terms and numbers wrong.
Paul: Thanks for the comments. Clearly the numbers are screwed up here (a quick foray to the CDC site shows this) but I am not at all clear on what the correct numbers would be.
Also, since water can cause the laryngospasm reflex that can then cause dry drowning, there may actually be an overlap in the physiology.
But I agree with you that this story is not a story about dry drowning. It is about secondary drowning.
So, I change the title but kept the rest of the post the same with an added note to see the comments for further confusion, ah, clarification.
I am SO glad I didn't know about this when my kids were little. We spent a lot of time at a lake and they started swimming at like age 2. Yikes.
I'm not a doctor, but I've been told that secondary drowning is more of a danger in a pool than in open ocean, something to do with the chlorine content. Is this true?
Why was his face covered in the white spongy material? I kept reading the article thinking they would say why that would happen, but I didn't see anything. I could have missed it.
Well, I AM a doctor, and I would say that it depends on how you frame the question.
(OK, OK, I'm a doctor of Philosophy...)
But that is a good question, and I hope someone will chime in with an answer. I would imagine that a factor could be what the liquid does in the way of causing a reaction vs. sneaking around in the lungs drowning you...
I have looked around for an explanation of the spongy material and have not found anything.
The spongy thing was probably froth.
It could be froth. I've seen the froth, and I would have never described it as spongy. But if spongy means "lots of holes (like bubbles?) as opposed to spongy in a tactile sense then yes, froth seems likely.
It would have been froth. Usually after experiencing a near-drowning episode, most life guards will urge the person to go the hospital to make sure that secondary drowning can be caught before it becomes an issue. The fluid will show up in the lungs on an x-ray. Oddly enough, when the series first came out, and I was bored enough to watch, there was an case of this on Baywatch. It freaked me out so I went and got info on it from a life guard friend of mine