"Dry drowning"

As if parents don't have enough to worry about:

Johnny Jackson, a 10-year-old American boy from South Carolina, died at home on Sunday from "dry drowning" more than an hour after going swimming and walking home with his mother. The sad event highlights a little known danger that parents and child carers should be aware of, that drowning can kill hours after being submersed in water.

The Medical News article doesn't really give any solid numbers on how common "dry drowning" (dying from water in the lungs) is, though it does note that a "not insignificant" component would be children dying after a bath.

Since this story appeared on the Today show, I expect it will cause a disproportionate degree of worry among parents. My usual yardstick for assessing relative risk is crude and subjective, but not necessarily inaccurate: do I personally know anyone, or anyone who knows anyone, who has been a victim? By that metric, I'm not going to lose any sleep over this particular scare-of-the-month. Teenage driving, that's another matter. . .

Posted by David on June 7, 2008 10:48 AM