Kids love to play in a swimming pool or in any other water body during the summer season and it is the duty of parents to be very alert when their children are in the pool. Despite the fact that the level of water is kept low in the pool, the kids may get injured by falling and there are also chances of drowning.
What’s more, parents need to be careful when kids are out of the pool and they cough continuously, vomit, have problems in breathing or sleep for unusually long time. These symptoms indicate that the child may be suffering from a disease which, if not treated on time, can take the kid’s life.
The disease is known as “dry drowning”; before you interpret it wrongly, let us make it clear that it has got nothing to do with sand or heat. It is connected with water only; however, the symptoms are visible only after the kid is out of the swimming pool. In fact, sometimes it may take 24 hours for the symptoms to show up.
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In dry drowning or secondary drowning, the kid inhales pool, ocean or bath water which causes infection in the lungs. Parents should keep a watch on their kids if they are used to of playing in the pool and take them to doctor if they get to see the children having problem in breathing or they are constantly coughing.
Lacey Grace, mom of a 4-yr girl Elianna Grace, took to Facebook to warn everyone about dry drowning after her daughter suffered with it and had to be hospitalized. The accident took place on Saturday but it was on Monday only that the signs of dry drowning started showing up.
On Saturday, Elianna was playing in her grandparents’ pool with a pool noodle. She was blowing from one end and the water was blown by the other side but just then someone blew from the other side and the girl inhaled some water. She threw it instantly and there was nothing to be worried. In fact, after 30 minutes of the incident, she was playing, eating and behaving normally and on Sunday too, she was fine.
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On Monday, Elianna got fever but Lacey did not take it seriously. The girl slept a lot on Tuesday but she looked fine on Wednesday and went to school. In the afternoon, the mother got a call from the school telling that Elianna’s fever, which dimmed down earlier, had increased.
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This was the time when she remembered a story written by a father from Texas whose son passed away as he was not treated medically after he inhaled pool water. The scene of Elianna’s accident was getting played again and again in the mind of Lacey and she was pretty determined to not let this happen with her daughter.
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They took Elianna to the urgent care hoping that everything would be fine but after 10 minutes, the doctor told them to take her to the nearest ER as soon as possible because her oxygen was very low, heart rate was freaking high and the body was turning purple which clearly indicated that there was a chemical infection.
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The nearest ER conducted a chest X-ray and it confirmed that infection and inflammation had been caused due to chemicals in the pool water. After two hours, Elianna was taken to a bigger hospital by an ambulance so that she could be monitored around the clock and the pediatrics would also be able to keep an eye on her.
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The little girl was diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia, chemical pneumonitis and perihilar edema. She was kept on oxygen and when doctors tried to give her a chance to breathe on her own, there was a drop in her levels. The second dose of antibiotic was given to her; however, not much relief was there. She was suffering from fever even then and the only good thing that had happened was that her heart rate had lowered.
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Elianna was in hospital for four days before being sent to home, almost after one week of the dry drowning incident. Grace is very thankful to the person who wrote his son’s story because it was that post only because of which she took her daughter to hospital. She has also written in the post that she will definitely write a letter to the father of the boy.
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A page titled as GoFundMe was created in order to help Elianna’s family in covering the expenses of medical treatment. It was created by Grace’s colleague Courtney in order to help Grace and her family as they were needed to pay huge amount of hospital bills after the unfortunate incident.
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Undoubtedly, the Facebook post of Grace had a great effect and she received good wishes from all over the world for Elianna. Till now, the post has received more than 600 comments with about 42K reactions over 112K shares. Any post which makes people aware about such diseases has to be appreciated and Grace deserves a lot of praise for that.
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A good number of gifts were sent for Elianna along with the donation when she was in the hospital, getting treated for the dry drowning and this photo clearly shows how happy she was after receiving those gifts. An amount of around $8338 has been received as donation by 246 people.
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Now Elianna is perfectly fine but her family is spreading awareness about dry drowning till the date. In the month of May, they shot a 3-minute video with the reporters of Today Show, which was about Elianna’s story and the symptoms of dry drowning. There is no doubt that little Elianna is a star now and we really want that her story reaches maximum audiences so that no one suffers from dry drowning.
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The symptoms of dry drowning are extreme sleepiness, continuous coughing, trouble in breathing, vomiting and unusual change in behavior. The good part about this disease is that such incidents are very rare but it can’t be ruled out that they can happen as in the case of Elianna. So better be prepared and alert as well as spread the information.
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