Articles Posted in Drowning Accident

Whether you and your family are swimming in a pool or the ocean in Carlsbad or another location in Southern California, it is important to understand the seriousness of drowning risks. In addition to drowning risks, you should also learn more about the different types of drowning — drowning, as well as dry drowning or secondary drowning — and possible sources of liability for these serious and deadly accidents. While children are often the ones who suffer serious and life-threatening harm in drowning incidents, it is important to know that anyone can drown or suffer from dry drowning, including adults who are seasoned swimmers. Our Carlsbad drowning injury lawyers can tell you more.

Drowning: What is it and How Does it Happen?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drowning is “the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion or immersion in liquid.” It can be nonfatal or fatal. The CDC reports that for children aged 1 to 4, drowning is the leading cause of death, and it is the second-leading cause of death among children aged 5 to 14. Drowning can also occur in adult swimmers, even those with experience, due to dangerous tides, intoxication, and other injuries in the water.

When a swimming pool accident happens in Carlsbad, who is liable? The answer to that question will depend upon the type of accident and how it happened. In many cases, the owner or renter of the property where the swimming pool accident happened may be liable, but there are also circumstances in which another party’s negligence or legal responsibility could affect your claim. Our Carlsbad personal injury lawyers can provide you with more information about liability for common types of swimming pool accidents.

Drowning and Near-Drowning Accidents

The American Red Cross urges parents and caregivers to learn more about drowning, and to recognize that it is the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. Drowning can occur when kids are unsupervised in a pool or hot tub, or in situations where a swimmer is intoxicated and drowns, and even in circumstances involving intentionally wrongful acts. In some rarer cases, drowning can result from defects in one of the pool parts, such as a drain that traps a person’s swimsuit and holds them underwater, or when a defective pool drain causes suction injuries.

Nobody wants to think about the risks of a drowning accident when enjoying time at the beach, or a California vacation to a resort with a swimming pool or to the home of a family or friend with a swimming pool in the backyard. Yet drowning accidents are more common than you think, especially when younger children are left unattended or when alcohol is involved. If you or somebody you love suffered serious or fatal injuries in a drowning accident caused by someone else’s negligence, it is important to find out more about filing a claim for compensation by speaking with a personal injury lawyer in San Marcos. In the meantime, the following are five things to know about drowning accidents in San Diego County.

  1. Thousands of People Drown in the U.S. Every Year

Every year in the U.S. alone, thousands of people die in drowning accidents. Indeed, according to the United States Swim School Association, anywhere from 3,500 to 4,000 people die on average each year because of avoidable drowning accidents, and children between the ages of 1 and 4 are killed most often in accidental drownings. Nearly 90% of those young child deaths occur in pools or hot tubs.

During the holiday season in Poway, many families travel to Southern California for vacations while others travel to other parts of the country to visit family members or friends. When you are staying in a hotel or motel for the holidays, it is important to understand potential hazards and injury risks in these spaces and to take precautions. Our experienced Poway hotel injury attorneys have tips for you to avoid accidents and injuries at hotels and motels over the holidays. 

Watch Kids Around the Pool Area

If you are staying at a hotel or motel with a pool, it may be tempting to say “yes” when your kids ask if they can go down to the pool on their own. Drowning accidents are much too common at hotels and motels across the country, and most hotels do not have lifeguards on duty who can provide any kind of supervision. Even if you have teenagers, it is important to take precautions and to supervise your children while they are swimming.

As summer approaches in San Clemente and throughout Southern California, more families will be spending time at the beach and in neighborhood pools. While swimming can be a great summertime activity for children and adults alike, it is critical to remember that swimming also comes with serious risks of drowning injuries and deaths. Indeed, according to a report from CNN Health, drowning is the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 1 and 4, and nearly 400 kids under the age of 15, on average, die every year in drowning incidents in pools and spas. Adults, too, can sustain fatal drowning injuries if they are caught in rip tides or if they consume alcohol before boating or swimming. 

With summer just a couple of months away, now is the time to refresh your knowledge of drowning risks to help prevent a drowning death this summer.

What Do You Need to Know About Drowning Risks?

angelo-pantazis-690601-unsplash-copy-300x200Although the weather is warm year-round in Valley Center and throughout San Diego County, summer remains a popular time for taking vacations and for getting out of the house for weekend trips. With the school year also nearing its end, parents in Valley Center should get prepared for summer and should be thinking about ways to prevent personal injuries. According to a recent article in Reader’s Digest, there are many different ways in which personal injuries can happen during the summer months, and a lot of them are unexpected. We have a list of some of the most common yet unexpected dangers that typically affect people over the summer. By knowing about injury risks, residents of and visitors to San Diego County can better avoid them.

Common Injury Risks You May be Ignoring

What are some of the most frequent summer injury risks that many people tend to ignore? Take a look at the following:

ryan-wilson-18905-copy-300x300One of the great features of any hotel when you are on vacation with your family is an outdoor pool. Even for visitors to Rancho Bernardo who are planning to spend much of their time at the beach, if you are staying at a hotel with a pool, there is a good chance that you and your children will enjoy some time by the poolside. However, pools can be extremely dangerous, and children especially can sustain serious hotel injuries at a pool. While drowning due to swimming inexperience or slipping and falling typically is the primary concern when it comes to hotel pool injuries, there are other ways that guests can get hurt while enjoying the water. Specifically, pool drain accidents and pool filter accidents happen more often than you might think.

Hotel Pools and Circulation Entrapments in Drains

Pools and hot tubs at hotels have drain systems and filter systems that are designed to clean the water and to create circulation. While these systems help to ensure that hotel guests are swimming in clean water, they can also lead to serious personal injuries if proper safety precautions are not taken or if these devices do not undergo regular maintenance. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) refers to many of these injuries that lead to drowning deaths as “circulation entrapments.” In such situations, an injured guest may be able to file a hotel negligence claim.

ryan-wilson-18905-copy-300x300Can children and adults really suffer fatal injuries as a result of “dry drowning” or “secondary drowning” in San Marcos this summer? Parents often hear about—and worry about—the risks of dry drowning, yet according to a recent article in TribLive, physicians say that there are many misconceptions about dry drowning and secondary drowning that need to be cleared up. These terms suggest that they refer to medical conditions, when in fact they often are used in many different scenarios in which people are suffering from a variety of medical conditions. As such, parents do not need to worry about dry drowning, but they do need to be aware of other medical conditions that can arise when a child is involved in a drowning accident.

Dry Drowning is Not Real, But Other Medical Conditions are

According to Dr. Peter Wernicki, who is a member of the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council, the terms ‘dry drowning’ and ‘secondary drowning’ are ones that have “totally been over-hyped by social media and people who are not knowledgeable on the subject.” He went on to emphasize that there is a common misconception that kids get rescued from the water or accidentally swallow or inhale water in the ocean or in a pool, and then suddenly—without warning—the child stops breathing hours or days later. As Wernicki underscores, “that just doesn’t happen.” Indeed, he clarified, “a child doesn’t act fine for eight hours and then die from drowning.”

matt-hardy-562566-unsplash-1-copy-300x200If you live in Carlsbad and spend a significant amount of time at the beach with your family, it is important to carefully consider the risks of drowning accidents in open water. While drowning dangers certainly exist at home swimming pools, a new study addresses the growing risk of drowning in open water. An article in Today discusses the recent study conducted by Safe Kids Worldwide, which suggests that “families need to pay more attention to swimming safety—especially in open water.” According to the study, drowning rates in open water have increased, and parents need to take preventive measures to ensure their children’s safety.

Swimming Pool Drowning Accidents Decrease While Open Water Drowning Incidents Increase

The Safe Kids Worldwide study focuses on the fact that most drowning prevention education and outreach tends to highlight the dangers of swimming pools. Parents learn about the need to keep pools fenced so that children can not accidentally enter the pool without adult supervision, and the importance of always keeping an eye on any child who is swimming. This kind of outreach work, according to the study, has helped to reduce the rate of swimming pool drowning accidents across the country. At the same time, however, the rate of open water drowning accidents has risen.

joey-banks-380271-copy-300x200Nobody in Oceanside likes to think about the possibility of a serious drowning accident in which a child suffers serious or fatal injuries. However, drowning accidents happen with some frequency—especially in Southern California—and it is important for parents to be aware of the risks. Indeed, according to a recent article in the Patch, officials have identified an “alarming spike in juvenile drownings this year” in Southern California, which led to a “public health warning urging families to exercise caution with youth and water.” We are only three months into 2018, and so far four children have died as a result of drowning accidents in the state. To put that number in perspective, four children died in total from drowning incidents in 2017.

Dangers of Backyard Pools in Oceanside

Whether you have a young child or a teenager, it is important to learn more about the risks of drowning, especially if you have a backyard pool. Many preventable drowning incidents happen at home. As the article explains, a child in Riverside County recently died from drowning after riding a toy car into his own backyard pool. The parents thought the toddler was inside the house, only to find him in the family pool after it was too late to resuscitate him. Similarly, a 9-year-old child at a nearby home died after falling into a family pool to retrieve a tennis ball. Nobody at the house found her until 15 minutes after she had drowned.

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