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Media's coverage of "dry drowning" death was irresponsible
by Herb Ruhs, MD
| June 7, 2008 |
Medically this is still called "near drowning" (I checked to make sure -- never know these days when name games are being played in medicine). I have dealt with it many times over the years. Even with acute medical care sometimes death ensues.
What I would like to encourage people to notice in themselves is their emotional reaction to the story. Your emotions are being manipulated! This is irresponsible journalism at nearly its worst. When so called "journalists" (true journalists becoming very rare these days) pick up such a story they milk it for the fear factor, just like the stupid TV shows.
A more useful approach to this story would be to focus on what preventative measures could have been put in place to prevent this death. Instead they mystify the event and leave people thinking it is just a random uncontrollable event that could happen to anyone's children at any time. May they rot in hell.
Part of what pediatricians call "anticipatory guidance" involves warning parents about the dangers of water, the need for very close supervision, and certainly avoiding sending children who have no experience with water swimming. I suspect that this warning was never delivered to this family, as competent, well-trained pediatric care is becoming nearly as rare as competent, ethical journalism. But identifying this omission does not let the general society off the hook for its total failure to provide effective public health services and education. We live in a very rich, very backward country, in case you haven't noticed.
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Re JR Mooneyham's comments
on "dry drowning"
Boy's death highlights a
hidden danger: Dry drowning
Excerpt: The tragic death of a South Carolina 10-year-old more than an hour after he had gone swimming has focused a spotlight on the little-known phenomenon called “dry drowning” -- and warning signs that every parent should be aware of.
“I’ve never known a child could walk around, talk, speak and their lungs be filled with water,” Cassandra Jackson told NBC News in a story broadcast Thursday on Today.
On Sunday, Jackson had taken her son, Johnny, to a pool near their home in Goose Creek, S.C. It was the first time he’d ever gone swimming -- and, tragically, it would be his last.
At some point during his swim, Johnny got some water in his lungs. He didn’t show any immediate signs of respiratory distress, but the boy had an accident in the pool and soiled himself. Still, Johnny, his sister and their mother walked home together.
“We physically walked home. He walked with me,” Jackson said, still trying to understand how her son could have died. “I bathed him, and he told me that he was sleepy.”
Later, she 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.” ...
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My routine educational effort with parents about water dangers includes telling them that small children can drown in a very small amount of water in the bottom of a bucket, and that children need to be closely supervised around water at all times. When mature enough (not the baby swim crap) children should receive competent swimming instruction from people regularly involved in teaching swimming to children. These preventive measures are sufficient to prevent most of these deaths.
I would lay this boy's death, and thousands of other unnecessary and avoidable deaths, at the feet of our venal politicians and their greed-crazed demented financial backers who are stealing the country blind and continually pump unrealistic fear into the population as a social control device to divert us from the legitimate anger we should be feeling about their disastrous management of our country. The solution for this problem, like virtually all our social problems, is to throw the bums out.
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Part of what pediatricians call "anticipatory guidance" involves warning parents about the dangers of water, the need for very close supervision, and certainly avoiding sending children who have no experience with water swimming.
I suspect that this warning was never delivered to this family, as competent, well-trained pediatric care is becoming nearly as rare as competent, ethical journalism.
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