Drowning

I received a reminder the other day of an incident that happened a couple of months ago, it brought me back smack bang to the day that Elisabeth nearly drowned.

The statistics show that in years 2006-2007 alone, 35 children under the age of 5 drowned, the QLD Injury Surveillance Unit estimates that for every child that drowns, 14 are taken to emergency rooms, and 4 are admitted due to water immersion.

Pretty scary really!

In February 2005 I was staying at Seaworld Nara resort with my mum, I was about 20 weeks pregnant and rather huge being number 6 for us. We were lazing by the pool, in the children's area and the kids were frolicking madly in the water. Mum and I were both browsing through some magazines and every couple of minutes we were glancing up at the children and chatted incessantly about them. There were other large groups around the pool, notabley tourists but it was a pretty busy day. Ironiclly though, there were not too many in the pool.

I could hear Lachlan yelling, "Grab my hand Sissy, just grab my hand!" I didnt click instantly, I thought they were still playing but little did I know, my 4 year old was desperately trying to save his younger sister. I looked up and screamed at mum, in the space of about 2 minutes, they had wondered too far in the beach section and my little girl was just out of her depth.

I was wearing my bathers and a sarong tied around my waist, (well under my big belly, but you get the idea!), I didnt think to whip it off and this again was a huge mistake. As I ran through the beach area, my sarong was filling with water like a big balloon, it was slowing me down big time and taking me longer to get to her. Finally I grabbed her hand, pulled her towards me and I was in pain (as my pregnancies are high risk and not easy) but I could only think of Elisabeth. I picked her up and tried to run back out of the pool, again being slowed down by my sarong. She was pretty unresponsive, her eyes were rolling around in her head and she wasn't making a noise, I sat her on my lap and she was pretty floppy and her face was going a terrible shade of blue. Mum and I were thumping her on her back, I didnt know what else to do really. I tried to tip her upside down (for what reason I dont know???) and then she started vomiting copious amounts of water, it was damn awful, it just kept coming forth from her mouth. I was crying, mum was horrified and Lachlan just looked on frightened. After a about 5 minutes I guess, the vomiting stopped, we were surrounded by water smelling of bile and she was ok but rather incoherrant. She snuggled into me and her entire body was shaking.

I felt dreadful, I could not believe that I had let this happen nor could I believe that I had come so close to losing my oldest daughter. She asked if she could go to the toilet, so I took her back to the room and for about 10 minutes she had the runs and again, I realised how much water she had actually taken in.

We were one of the lucky ones, she survived, it made her more wary of the water but she was here nonetheless. My darling son, had tried so hard to help her and I will never forget that, imagine your 4 year old, bravely holding out his hand, trying to grab her himself?

I learnt a very valuable lesson that day, one I shall never forget.