How to prevent children from drowning every summer

Drowning child successfully resuscitated at Can Tho Children's Hospital - Photo: BV

Recently, the hospital admitted baby TAD (17 months old, in Vung Liem district, Vinh Long province) due to drowning.

Upon admission to the hospital, the patient had stiff limbs, pale lips, and was gasping for breath.

Upon examination, the family said that because the house was in the countryside, there were many ditches around the house, and no fence around the house. When the child was playing and accidentally fell into the ditch next to the house, the family discovered it and brought the child to shore and performed "water shock" before taking him to the emergency room.

At the hospital, the emergency doctors determined that the child was suffering from severe suffocation due to drowning. The doctors immediately performed emergency resuscitation, intubated him, injected him with anti-convulsants, anti-cerebral edema drugs, cardiac support, and intravenous nutrition.

The baby was then transferred to the intensive care and anti-poison department for monitoring and treatment.

After intensive treatment, the patient improved, could breathe on his own and was transferred to the respiratory department for continued treatment.

According to doctors, summer comes with the fear of drowning in children. Since the beginning of June, 5 drowning cases have been admitted to the hospital.

There are severe cases, brought to the hospital late and given the wrong emergency treatment, with prolonged cardiac and respiratory arrest, so the prognosis is very poor.

To prevent drowning and provide proper first aid, Dr. Nguyen Thi Nguyet Anh - Emergency Department of Can Tho City Children's Hospital - guides on measures to prevent and properly provide first aid to drowning children: first is to teach children to swim; for young children, there must always be an adult to supervise them when swimming in the pool or the sea; areas containing water, ponds around the house need to be fenced or supervised when children play...

Proper first aid for drowning children

As soon as you discover a child is drowning, quickly take the child out of the water and place him or her in a dry, airy place.

If the child is unconscious, check to see if he or she is breathing by watching for chest movement.

If the chest does not move, the child has stopped breathing. Immediately perform basic resuscitation by chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Observe to ensure the drowning person's airway is clear, such as removing phlegm and foreign objects (if any) from the mouth and nose.

In milder cases, if the child can still breathe on his own, place him in a side-lying position, remove wet clothes, and keep his body warm with blankets or dry clothes. In both severe and mild cases, immediately after first aid, the child should be quickly taken to the nearest medical facility.

Things not to do when performing first aid for drowning at the scene

Do not lift a drowning child to shock him/her, or "roll over" him/her... according to folk experience.

Because when carrying the baby in a reverse shock not only has no effect but is also very dangerous for the baby, because the baby can fall and cause further injury; if the baby has a previous injury, the reverse shock will make the baby's condition worse.

At the same time, these methods also slow down cardiopulmonary resuscitation time and delay reaching a medical facility for emergency care.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/lam-sao-de-khong-co-tre-duoi-nuoc-moi-khi-den-he-2024062816134991.htm