Boy Dies Of Dry Drowning After Leaving Pool And Walking Home
A 10 year old boy had an “incident” at the pool he was swimming in, was able to walked home with his mom, chatted with her, then felt tired and went to sleep, and died in his sleep.
Doctors determined that the boy had died of drowning because of water in his lungs.
Apparently the boy had inhaled water into his lungs while playing and swimming at the pool but did not appear to have difficulty in breathing at the time. However, he soon complained of extreme tiredness and went to sleep and never woke up.
“Dry drowning”, as this case is classified under, is an extremely rare presentation of drowning. In most cases of drowning, the victim immediately suffers from difficulty in breathing due to the lack of oxygen being absorbed through the lungs to the blood stream. In dry drowning, this difficulty in breathing is not obvious. Instead, the rarer symptoms of extreme tiredness or change in behaviour - also indicating lack of oxygen to the brain - is experienced later. The fact that the 10 year old boy “soiled” himself should alert us to this sudden change in behaviour.
If diagnosed early, oxygen can be forcefully pumped into the lungs to allow oxygen to seep through to the blood stream, giving the lungs time to recover.
For the full report regarding this strange but true story, click here.