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- Drowning is a major cause of death and disability in the world and is the second leading cause of injury death for children of the European Union. More than 70% of the victims are boys and the most vulnerable are children one to four years of age.
- A drowning incident in the home takes many people by surprise, as it happens silently within seconds, in as little as 2 cm of water, in less time than it takes to answer the telephone. It can take place in the bathtub or swimming pool. The estimated time that a child who has drowned was noted to be missing was usually less than 5 minutes and in a swimming pool drowning, no caregiver has ever reported hearing a splash, even when the caregiver was by the poolside.
- In the United Kingdom more children died in pools abroad while on vacation than in the United Kingdom and more than half of those who drowned could in fact swim.
- For every child who drowned in the Netherlands, an additional 140 were hospitalized for near-drowning; for every hospital admission, approximately 20 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year.
- Alcohol use is one of the most frequently reported contributory factors associated with drowning and causes poorer supervision of children.
- Inadequate supervision was found to be the most common factor associated with drownings and near-drownings.
- Drownings occur more often in communities with a high number of residential pools.
- In France between June and September 2003, seventy-four children between the ages of 0 to 12 were victims of near-drowning in a private swimming pool while another 26 drowned in a private swimming pool. In the majority of these drownings the child could not swim and was under no supervision, especially for the 0 to 5 year old children. The cause was most often a fall into the water. One girl was intentionally drowned in a private pool.
This information has been taken from the Fact sheet on Water Safety published by the Alliance in October 2006. This fact sheet including the references to the information above is available here
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