A Hard Lesson: Water, Children Don’t Mix

Kevin Wood Jr. was down to one egg.

An Easter egg hunter of enormous talent, he searched and searched--and then pounced.

He had it. He smiled. His basket was full. He was as content as a 2-year-old can be.

Two minutes later, he was nearly dead.

His uncles and aunts found him floating face down in the pool, his body an ugly blue, bobbing just out of reach of the tennis ball he had chased into the water.

“He was only out of sight for a few moments,” said his father, Kevin Wood, a Marine sergeant whose voice cracked as he spoke. “He was always laughing, full of life, getting into things.”

The mean season for children and water is under way.

Eighteen San Diego-area children who had nearly drowned or had drowned have been taken to Children’s Hospital this year--13 in March and April alone--and local health officials have begun the annual summer campaign to promote water safety and cardiopulmonary resuscitation lessons.

In San Diego County, juvenile drownings decreased slightly in recent years, but the death rate is up early this year, according to the county medical examiner’s office.

Six area children under age 14 have drowned so far in 1990, compared with 8 deaths in 1989, 12 in 1988, 18 in 1987, and 15 in 1986.

The number of children who nearly drown each year--many of whom suffer permanent brain or lung damage--was not available, but it is estimated that for every drowning, 10 children are hospitalized from water incidents.

“The bottom line is children should never be left alone--for even a few seconds--around any water,” said Mark Morelli, a spokesman for Children’s Hospital, which treats the more severe cases. Last year the hospital handled 52 children who had drowned or nearly drowned.

Area hospitals and other groups will conduct safety programs and classes this summer at schools, parks, beaches and other areas.

Nationwide, an average of 330 children drown and an additional 4,200 nearly drown each year, according to the U.S.

Consumer Products Safety Commission. Most are male and between the ages of 12 months and 35 months.

Family back-yard pools account for 65% of the drownings. More than three-fourths of the victims were seen in the house by an adult less than five minutes before the accident.

“I can give you all the statistics you want, but the point is that anybody with a pool must be committed to vigilance (in supervising children),” said Jack Eden, a spokesman for the federal safety commission. “It can happen to anyone. Turn your back for a moment. Parents better believe it.”

Drowning in residential pools remains the leading cause of death among children under age 5 in California, one of only four states where water kills more children than fire, according to the commission.

“These accidents have happened in pools, spas, bathtubs, buckets, but they are preventable,” Morelli said. “We have to convince parents that it can happen to anyone.”

Most drownings and near drownings occur when a child falls into a pool or spa or is left alone in a bath tub, according to health authorities. Infants can drown in an inch of water. An 11-month-old Vista baby drowned in April after falling head-first into a bucket of water.

In April, Michelle Sallee of Chula Vista left her 13-month-old daughter Brittany in a few inches of water in the bathtub for 30 seconds.

“She was face down when I came back,” Sallee said. “She wasn’t breathing. Her lips were blue. I threw her on the floor and started CPR.”

Brittany suffered no permanent damage, but the experience convinced Sallee to encourage other young mothers to be especially watchful around water.

“I thought nothing like that can happen to my baby, but it was just like that,” Sallee said, snapping her fingers.

Water safety tips include:

* Never leave children alone around water, even those who have taken swimming lessons.

* Never rely on flotation devices.

* Keep pool and spa areas locked.

* Teach children water safety habits, including no pushing, dunking or diving into unknown bodies of water.

* Enroll children older than 3 in swimming lessons.

* Learn CPR.

* Teach children how to dial the 911 emergency phone number.

Hospital officials said the Wood family’s situation involved the two most common factors in child drowning or near drownings: Adults were present and the child was out of sight for only moments.

“His aunt had him by the hand and they started to go into the house,” said Wood, 31, of Escondido. “He follows her like a puppy and she assumed he followed her into the house, but he slipped away for only a couple minutes. That’s all it took.”

Young Kevin is in critical condition in the intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital. He apparently escaped brain damage, but he contracted pneumonia and remains on a ventilator.

It is too soon to know if Kevin suffered permanent respiratory damage or when he might breathe without the ventilator, said Dr. Bradley Peterson, director of the hospital’s intensive care unit.

“It can take weeks, months, before we know,” Peterson said. “The waiting is the hardest part for the parents. They go through hell.”

Wood and his wife, Myrna, visit their son nightly.

“The waiting is frustrating. We feel helpless,” Wood said. “Like my wife says, she has a real heavy heart.”

Wood urged other parents to heed the warnings about children and water.

“You know the old saying: It only happens to the other guy. Well, it happened to us. I want to tell parents it’s a lot easier to put up a fence around the pool than stand over your child in the ICU and watch him fight for his life.”

Peterson said the degree of permanent neurological and respiratory damage caused by nearly drowning depends on several factors, including the temperature of the water, how long the heart and blood flow are stopped and whether any vomit expelled with swallowed water enters the lungs.

Colder water slows the chemical reactions in human tissue, allowing a person to survive for an extended period with little or no oxygen, and vomit exposes the sensitive lung tissue to infections, Peterson said.

Most drownings occur before children reach age 4 and develop a minimum of swimming ability and a greater sense of knowing when to avoid water, Peterson added.

“The dangerous time is when they learn to walk and they go exploring,” he said. “They can get into paint buckets, mop buckets, drainage ditches, duck ponds. Anything.”