Recent News About Dry Drowning Reportedly Helped Prevent A New Case

Over the past week, news sources have been highlighting the possibility of suffering from the so-called “dry drowning” or “secondary drowning” after a 4-year old boy lost his life because of it. Now, a family reports that the recent stir and influx of information helped save their own son’s life.

Dry Drowning Brought to Attention By New Cases

Dry and secondary drowning were catapulted to the public’s attention after the unfortunate passing away of Frankie Delgado III. The four-year-old was reportedly the victim this rare medical condition, which took his life several days after he and his family had gone swimming.

Although dry drowning is still quite a cause of debates, his family decided to bring to attention this issue and hopefully prevent it from happening again. Now, a family from Colorado states that this news helped save their 2-year-old son’s life.

A few hours after swimming, he started exhibiting similar symptoms to those of Frankie, so his parents rushed him to the hospital. There, tests revealed that the boy had quite a significant amount of fluid in his lungs, but the precautionary measure helped save his life.

Dry drowning and secondary drowning are used for describing very rare medical cases of atypical drownings. In such situations, the drowning happens hours or even days after going out of the water.

“Dry drowning” is used for describing cases in which an individual’s airways spasm or even close off. This is a severe reaction to water reaching the larynx. As the airways are blocked, blood starts absorbing the air which causes the air sacks to start shrinking. Following this reaction, the lungs start filling with fluids, blood, and mucus.

Symptoms of such a problem include chest pain, coughing, and difficulty breathing. They can also manifest through a change in the color of the fingertips or lips and feeling tired or a drop in energy.

Dry drowning cases are very rare, especially those resulting deaths, and such situations have no fixed treatment. One therapy method may, for example, require that the patient be placed on oxygen until their lungs start functioning normally again.

Neither “dry” nor “secondary” drowning aren’t medical terms, but they can be useful in drawing attention to the potential dangers for children both during and after swimming.

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