Have You Ever Heard of Secondary Drowning? Here’s What to Watch For!

We just came across a very frightening and very helpful personal post and story from a mom whose child recently became victim to secondary drowning.

This story was a brave and honest one to tell and we are so very grateful that this sweet mom shared her story to potentially save the lives of many.

The issue of secondary drowning is honestly one we had not heard of before, but as a mom and dad to 5 littles, this information was invaluable and so we talked to the author, Lindsay, to see if we could share her story.

As you may know, we do share real and personal life stories along with our other articles and ideas when and where we think it is valuable to many…. and this is one of those stories.

From Lindsay’s blog:

“Over the weekend I experienced one of the worst things since becoming a mother.  It was a moment where once the shock set in as to what might actually happen a thousand memories, regrets…things that I wish I had done differently that day flashed through my mind.

I tend to hesitate when it comes to sharing super personal experiences on the blog since I like to keep some areas of my life private but this particular event I decided that it was best to share, even though it made me feel like the worst mom in the world.  I felt like bringing awareness to what happened may prevent something from happening like this to you. 

Here is the story:

It was a pretty normal Saturday (or so I thought).  We woke up early, Ian and I made coffee and we had our weekend family tradition of scrambled eggs. We played in the backyard and then Ronin and I headed off to Target to pick up the usual necessities.  On our way home I ran over a nail and got a flat tire. Major bummer.  2 hours later we finally got the spare on.  At this point it was 2:30 in the afternoon and we were supposed to be at my niece’s birthday party at 3.  Somehow I made it home in time to shower, get the kids swim trunks on and get them all sun screened up.  We made it to the party at 3:30.  It was a pool party so all the cousins were in the pool, jumping around splashing and having a great time.  All the adults were also all outside sitting around and enjoying the nice weather.  I was watching Ronin who was sitting on the big step on the spa, where he had basically stayed put since entering the pool area.

Here is where everything went all wrong… I was sitting right on the edge of the outside of the spa, just a few inches from where Ronin was playing.  I shifted my sitting position to talk to my sister-in-law.  I turned around for maybe 5 seconds tops. I turned back around to take a peek at Ronin and he was not on the step. Mom panic and fear kicked into overdrive.  I frantically scanned the spa and saw him being whirled by the jets to the other end of the spa where his little head was bobbing up and down trying desperately to get air. I pulled him out as fast as I possibly could.  The whole ordeal was  around 20 seconds from when he fell into the water until when I got him out.  Other than Ronin being visibly upset and coughing to get the water out he seemed totally fine after he had calmed down.  I am the most over the top over paranoid mom ever and I was so mad at myself that this happened literally inches away from me!  He did seem more tired than usual after it happened but I figured he was exhausted from what just occurred combined with all the heat and exercise he had had for the last few hours.  We left the party soon after. “

This is not the end of the story, but you need to read the rest of her story and get the scoop on secondary drowning on Lindsay’s site at Delighted Momma HERE. It could save a life 🙂 

Have you ever heard of secondary drowning?  We can certainly tell you that we will now not only be super aware of our children during swimming, but we will be keeping a tight watch after too!

HUGE thanks to this brave mom for making us all aware during her trials!