Articles Posted in Drowning Accident

ryan-wilson-18905-copy-300x300Drowning accidents happen more often than they should in Oceanside and other parts of San Diego County. While many drowning accidents happen at the beach when swimmers are just off the shore, drowning accidents can also occur with some frequency in home swimming pools. In particular, pools can pose serious risks to child safety when they do not have proper guards or barriers. Recognizing the dangers of swimming pool accidents to young children, Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law the Pool Safety Act (SB 442), according to a recent report from PR Newswire. That law took effect on January 1, 2018, and it “requires new or remodeled pools and spas to have two of seven child protective safety barriers.”

Will the new law help to prevent avoidable drowning accidents in Southern California?

Drowning is a Leading Cause of Death Among California Children

ryan-wilson-18905-copy-300x300If you are staying at a hotel in Rancho Bernardo with your family, and there is a swimming pool accident, who is liable? Hotel accidents and accidental drowning incidents happen more often than they should. Hotels in Southern California and throughout the country often have signs around pool areas that warn about risks. In some situations, parents sign waivers for their kids to use a hotel pool. Can a hotel still be liable in the event that a drowning incident occurs and a child sustains serious personal injuries?

The facts of each case are different, but it is important to know that warnings and waivers do not always release hotels or other property owners from liability in a swimming pool accident.

Premises Liability and Swimming Pools at California Hotels

ian-schneider-38957-300x200While beaches in Carlsbad and Oceanside are popular throughout the year, these beaches grow particularly crowded during the summer when the risk of a drowning accident increases. According to a recent article in The San Diego Union-Tribune, a drowning death in Carlsbad last summer has left members of the community “looking for ways to improve safety at its three-quarter-mile North Beach before the busy season returns.” Currently, that area of the beach, which is very close to Oceanside, does not have lifeguards on duty. In the event of an emergency, state lifeguards will “respond from the nearby state beach.” However, safety advocates argue that such a response is insufficient.

Developing a Plan to Make Carlsbad Beach Area Safer

The City Council, according to the article, wants its staff to “develop a plan on how to make the beach safer, including the possibility of adding lifeguards there.” According to City Manager Kevin Crawford, City Council staff members will conduct research into different safety options and will seek involvement from Carlsbad residents before providing the City Council with “some options that could be implemented before summer.” As Crawford clarified, “It’s going to be a push . . . a lot of work, but I think we can do it.”

IMG_0036Whether you are swimming in a pool at your San Diego home or are visiting a neighbor’s house, do you need to be worried about your child’s safety as well as your own? According to a recent article in U.S. News & World Report, swimming pools can become death traps more frequently than most of us would like to believe, especially for young children. As that article explains, around 18 millions homes in the U.S. currently have swimming pools, but drowning is actually the leading cause of accidental death among children 1 to 4 years old. As the article emphasizes, a majority of those unintentional deaths occur in home swimming pools.

While kids under the age of four are at a higher risk of drowning than children in other age groups, it is important to remember that drowning can result in the death of anyone, at any age. For kids under the age of 15, drowning is the second-leading cause of accidental death. As such, it is important to take precautions to prevent your pool from becoming a death trap, as the article warns.

Supervision and Swimming Lessons for Your Kids

file0001308286258Most San Diego residents do not have to wait until summer to enjoy trips to the beach or afternoons by the pool. However, given that most children are on vacation during the summer months and likely will be engaging in recreational activities in and around the water, it is important to think about water safety and ways of preventing serious and even fatal child injuries. Parents in California should understand the risks and symptoms of both dry drowning and secondary drowning, and how to react in the event that an accident happens. According to a recent article in the Huffington Post, dry drowning and secondary drowning are not especially well understood, and it is important to learn more about how these incidents can occur.

Risks Continue After a Child Leaves the Water


One of the scariest features of both dry drowning and secondary drowning is that the child typically appears to be safe after being pulled from the water, only to exhibit life-threatening symptoms at a later point. Dry drowning is a little bit different from secondary drowning in terms of the timing. To better understand the symptoms of each, we should take a closer look at what each type of drowning entails.

Is there a connection between the drought in California and the number of drowning accidents that have occurred this summer? Thinking logically, it might seem that a drought would result in lower water levels and fewer water-related accidental deaths. However, according to a recent article from CBS San Francisco, the drought might actually be to blame for the higher-than-average drowning death toll in our state.2722297910_712a0df438

Drought Makes Swimming Conditions Hazardous

It is often more dangerous to swim in lakes and rivers during a drought—such as the one that Californians have been facing for nearly three years—than in drought-free conditions. Indeed, in rivers such as the American River or Sacramento River in Northern California, drought conditions mean that the shorelines have been pulled back, particularly at the site where the two rivers in the area come together. When shorelines are pulled back, swimmers can “get caught in strong currents where the water suddenly deepens,” the article explains.

According to a recent article in the OC Register, “as summer, and summery weather, loom, so do deaths in Orange County.” Drowning becomes the cause of many preventable deaths when the weather grows warmer and summer vacations take place. While a report from the Orange County Health Care Agency identified alarming statistics concerning drowning accidents in the state, residents of San Diego should also be on notice. While Southern California can be an idyllic place to live or spend a week in the summer, the risk of drowning very much exists.

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Identifying Drowning Risks in Southern California

Most of us assume that young children are among those most likely to suffer fatal injuries in a drowning. As a result of this assumption, we often expect that adults can handle themselves when they’re in the water, and we’re less likely to suspect a drowning accident. However, the recent report showed that, “while toddlers are at higher risk for water-related emergencies, they weren’t the age demographic most likely to die in the water.” To be sure, adults aged 65 and older “drowned more frequently than any other age group.”

Although the weather is beginning to cool down around the country, diving remains a popular sport in Southern California.  Indeed, lobster diving takes place with frequency at this time of year.  However, fatal diving accidents occur too often, and many of these deadly accidents are preventable.  If you lost a loved one in a diving-related incident, you may be able to file a wrongful death claim.

Deadly Diving Accident Near Cfile000316008356atalina

According to a recent article in CBS’s KUTV2, a vacationing physician was recently identified as the victim of a deadly diving accident off the coast of Orange County.  The victim, Jared Royer, 40, was on a lobster-diving vacation with a group of other physicians.  Royer’s brother-in-law indicated that it was an annual trip, and Royer “was an experienced diver who had been on several similar trips with his colleagues in previous years,” according to a report in The Spectrum.  The group was diving in Emerald Bay late in the evening, and around 11p.m., the other physicians noticed that Royer had not returned to the boat.

The summer months increase the risk of childhood drowning. The weather is at its warmest, and many people in the San Diego area enjoy swimming at the beach and in pools throughout the area. However, it is extremely important to keep a close eye on children when they are near the water to prevent drowning accidents. According to arecent article from San Diego News 6, the last week of August saw six near-fatal child drownings in San Diego County.

According to Oseana Bratton, file2041245784619a nurse at Rady Children’s Hospital, “six cases of young children nearly drowning in a 48-hour period may seem like a lot, but it’s not that uncommon this time of year, and there’s plenty more hot weather ahead.” Are parents and caregivers keeping an appropriately watchful eye?

One-year-old Gabriel Clark, his four-year-old sister, and the children’s nanny were swimming in a neighbor’s pool in Oceanside. According to the article, “it was just another day for his parents, both of them at work, until his mom Karen got a heart-stopping text.” The nanny texted Gabriel’s mother with a “terrifying text” that simply said “please call me.” The nanny had placed Gabriel in a flotation device—“the kind where his feet were in the water.” Karen told San Diego News 6 that the nanny reportedly “turned away for just a few seconds to help four-year-old Mia jump into the pool.”

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