Venus Labaron’s advice to other parents of toddlers is simple: “Watch them, just watch them.”
Labaron spoke with media today at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ flanked by family, friends and supporters. On Aug. 5, two of Labaron’s triplet children were pulled from a family member’s backyard, aboveground pool. Makayla, Labaron’s only daughter, died, and her son, Markel, remains in critical condition in the ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ Children’s Pediatric Critical Care Unit (PCCU).
After treating 10 children over the last 18 months for serious pool-related incidents in the unit, PCCU director Neal Patel, M.D., associate professor of Pediatrics at ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ Children’s Hospital, told members of the Nashville media today that this tragedy is all too common, and most of the children who come to the unit after near-drowning incidents do not do well.
“Half of the children we have seen have died, and many of the others suffer long-term brain damage,” Patel said. “It’s only a matter of seconds, minutes at the most, before a child who goes under the water suffers death or irreparable harm. The families we see are devastated by how quickly their lives change and how quickly a child can be lost.”
Here are some water safety facts:
* Children ages 4 and under have the highest drowning death rate, usually from pools or bathtubs
* Drowning fatality rates are highest in the Southern United States.
* About 40 percent of drownings happen on Saturdays and Sundays.
* Most children who drown in pools were out of sight for less than five minutes.
* Most drownings in children ages 1 to 4 happen in pools.
* Most drownings in children ages 5 to 14 are in open water sites.
A full two-thirds of all drowning deaths happen in the swim season; almost all of them are preventable.
Other precautions that have been shown to save lives include:
* A phone located at a pool
* Lifeguards
* Rescuing devices (floats or hooks)
* Lockable fences and gates
* Pool alarms that go off when someone hits the water
For More Information
Carole Bartoo
²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ Children’s Hospital
615-322-4747
Carole.bartoo@vanderbilt.edu