Accidental toddler drowning in 5-gallon buckets
Article Abstract:
Almost five children out of every 100,000 die of drowning each year in the United States, with the highest drowning rate among infants and toddlers. In most cases, children have been left unattended. Toddlers drown in bathtubs, swimming pools, and in buckets. Prompted by the incidence of drowning deaths among toddlers (49 for a four-and-one-half-year period ending in June 1989) in Cook County, Illinois, researchers studied one category of those deaths: toddler drowning in buckets. All 12 cases on record were studied with respect to victim and bucket characteristics, and the circumstances surrounding the drowning. Bucket deaths accounted for 24 percent of the total. The children ranged in age from nine to 16 months; nine were black, two Hispanic, and one white. All buckets involved in this accident were five-gallon containers, and were made of hard plastic with parallel sides. They are manufactured for use as industrial containers and do not tip over, even when empty. When the toddlers drowned, all had been left alone between one minute and several hours. All were found with their heads submerged and their feet in the air, some in buckets only 10 percent full. The implicated buckets were in use for floor scrubbing, as well as for catch basins or storage containers for fish. The toddler's curiosity often leads him to investigate everything and the location of his center of gravity makes it easy to tip over into a bucket that is more than half as tall as he is. Review by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission found that all of 67 drownings during a three-year period had occurred in these same five-gallon industrial buckets. Such buckets in the home are a threat to unattended toddlers and parents and health officials should take note. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1990
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Child drownings and near drownings associated with swimming pools - Maricopa County, Arizona, 1988 and 1989
Article Abstract:
In Arizona, the average annual drowning rate for children four years and younger (9 to 15 children per 100,000 children) is more than two to three times the national average of 4 children per 100,000 children. These facts are probably related to higher temperatures, a longer summer season, and a higher number of pools in this state. The Arizona Department of Health Services, in an attempt to learn how to intervene in these disasters, requested the Maricopa County fire departments to use a standard form to report drowning and near-drowning incidents. For the years 1988 and 1989 these fire departments received a total of 243 calls for drowning and near-drowning incidents involving this age group, with 111 incidents occurring between May and August. Eighty-five percent (or 206) of the incidents occurred in swimming pools; this county has approximately 125,000 public and private pools. The remaining incidents occurred in bathtubs (23, or 9 percent) and other bodies of water (14, or 6 percent). Report forms were only available for 137 of the incidents, and 94 of these were reported to have occurred at residential locations. Fifty-five of the 137 incidents were attributed to lack of supervision; 51 to incomplete or absent fencing around the pool; 19 to inadequate gate latching; and 12 to other causes. It is suggested that effective pool fencing alone could substantially reduce the number of drownings, and constant vigilance by parents as to their child's whereabouts could prevent almost as many deaths by drowning. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1990
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Trends in Unintentional Drowning: The Role of Alcohol and Medical Care
Article Abstract:
A drop in the death rate from drowning in King County, Washington appears to be a result of a decline in alcohol consumption around bodies of water. During a 21-year-period between 1975 and 1995, there were 539 deaths from drowning in King County and 284 persons hospitalized for near-drowning who survived. During the 21-year period, the number of deaths related to alcohol decreased 81%. Analysis of the patients who survived showed that more effective medical care did not cause decline in the death rate. Most of the decrease occurred because there were fewer drownings.
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1999
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