Articles Posted in Drowning Accidents

A 40-year-old Medford man died earlier this month in a Cape Cod, MA drowning accident at the Bayside Resort Hotel in Yarmouth. This is the second swimming fatality at the hotel in four months.

According to the media, first responders started administering CPR to Thomas Flynn at the scene. He was later pronounced dead upon arrival at Cape Cod Hospital.

Police say that a young hotel guest discovered him at the bottom of the pool’s shallow end. Bystanders pulled him out of the water.

Gregorio “Junior” Ortega, a 20-year-old from Lawrence, Massachusetts is in a coma after he almost drowned in a wave pool at a New England water park. According to relative, the near drowning happened while Ortega was attending his 13-year-old’s brother’s birthday.

The swimming accident occurred around noon while Ortega was in the wave pool at Water Country park. His cousin, Nicole Villafane, says that that he struggled in the water for some time before he was rescued.

She believes that the wave pool was too crowded that day and there should have been more than four lifeguards on duty. The lifeguards and park staff performed CPR on Ortega until firefighters and paramedics arrived. According to Portsmouth, N.H. Fire Chief Steven Achilles, it is not uncommon for the fire department to get calls at least once or twice a week during the summer about injuries that occurred at the park.

As the weather heats up, we’d like to send out a friendly reminder to play it safe this summer, especially around pools.

While swimming pools can be a fun way to cool off during bouts of warm weather, there are serious hazards to being around a pool that put people at risk for injury and even death.

An estimated 10 people die every day from unintentional drowning, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control. Of these drownings, 2 are children aged 14 or younger. Currently in the United States, drowning ranks as fifth among the leading causes of unintentional injury death.

In a breakdown of the topic, accessed from the CDC, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) between 2005-2009 annually in the United States. The report also found that an additional 347 people died each year from drowning in boating-related incidents. About 20% of drowning victims are children aged 14 and younger, and for every child who dies from drowning, another five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries (according to CDC website). In addition, more than 50% of drowning victims treated in emergency departments require hospitalization or transfer for further care, because often, these nonfatal drowning injuries cause severe brain damage that may result in long-term disabilities such as memory problems, learning disabilities, and permanent loss of basic functioning.

Those at risk include:

• Males: Account for 80% of drowning victims.
• Children: Children between the ages of 1 and 4 are at the greatest risk of drowning. According to the CDC, in 2009, among children 1 to 4 years old who died from an unintentional injury, more than 30% died from drownings. The majority of these drownings occurred in home swimming pools. According to the CDC, drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death behind motor vehicle crashes.
• Minorities: Between 2005 and 2009, the fatal unintentional drowning rate for African Americans was significantly higher than that of whites across all ages.
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A freshman student drowned at Greater Lowell Technical High School in Tyngsborough, MA yesterday.

Emergency responders were dispatched when an administrator at the school called for help around 11:45 a.m. Police and firefighters performed CPR on 15-year old Danny Svay, but were unable to revive him. He was pronounced dead at Lowell General Hospital.

The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office is calling the drowning accidental, and do not suspect foul play. This is the second drowning at the school in less than a year. A 17-year old student drowned last August.

Though officials are still investigating the true cause of the boy’s drowning, questions do arise as to the safety procedures currently put in place to prevent such accidents from occurring. A lack of preventative measures could have been the cause; such as the amount of trained pool staff, warning signs, pool clarity, etc. In 2011, a municipal pool in Fall River failed to follow proper safety protocols which ultimately cost a woman her life.

On June 26, 2011, Marie Joseph was swimming with her friends when she went down the pool slide and drowned in 12 feet of water. The water was so cloudy and dirty that Joseph’s body remained unnoticed at the bottom of the pool for two days until it floated to the surface.
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