For South Africans, summertime spells fun, sunshine and outdoor activities involving watersport and swimming. However, it can unfortunately also be a time fraught with tragedy for those who are inexperienced, unable to swim and who may for some or other reason be vulnerable to drowning.
David Stanton, head of clinical leadership at Netcare 911, said emergency medical services providers tended to receive more calls related to drowning and water-associated emergency incidents during December and January than any other months.
“Looking at data extracted from Netcare 911 for the period 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2017, as much as 62 per cent of all drowning incidents occurred during peak summer months,” he said.
Stanton added that KwaZulu-Natal had recorded the highest percentage of drowning incidents during the 12 month period. However, he said it was disconcerting to see that Gauteng was a close second with just more than 31 per cent of drownings recorded.
“In any emergency situation, the most important thing to do is contact the correct emergency number immediately. Try and memorise the number for emergency services in your area and keep the number saved on your cellphone and close to your landline telephone.
“In many cases, during the panic of a medical emergency, people cannot remember the correct number or cannot find where they have written it down.”
What to do in the event of drowning:
- Get the victim out of the water as soon as possible but do not become a victim yourself. Make sure it is safe for you to enter the water first
- Handle the victim with care. Many submersion incidents are associated with neck injuries, so keep movement to the back and neck to a minimum
- Assess to see if the victim is awake by asking if they can hear you
- Check for breathing by looking at the chest for no longer than 10 seconds. If the victim is not breathing or not breathing normally (i.e. gasping), call for immediate medical assistance
- Call, or have someone call, a recognised medical emergency service provider such as Netcare 911 on 082 911 as soon as possible. Whoever calls for the ambulance must give the dispatcher an accurate location of the incident and a contact number at the scene. Never hang up on the operator and always return to the rescuer to inform them that you have called for help
- If the victim is not breathing, immediately start CPR, beginning with chest compressions. Keep doing CPR at a ratio of 30 chest compressions, and then two breaths
- CPR is vital, even if it is an amateur administering it. Keep on doing it until someone who is trained in advanced life support arrives and can take over.
- All parents should learn how to administer child CPR as it differs from adult CPR. All people can benefit from CPR training – it is not a difficult skill to learn.
According to Stanton, having multiple layers of safety such as a certified safety net, a fence with locked gate, a child-minder and a surface alarm around the pool and spa areas at home or around other open bodies of water can prevent accidents and drowning.
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