United States: In the media these days, two terms that have been used frequently and are of significant interest to the public are ‘dry drowning’ and ‘secondary drowning.’
Even though dry drowning or secondary drowning tends to be used to describe real medical conditions that co-relate with drowning, they are rarely used by physicians and medical journals.
What more are the experts saying?
This is the case because experts believe that all “drowing is drowing,” as explained by Dr. Michael D. Patrick, Jr. MD an associate professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University and an emergency medicine physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
No differentiation is made whether one has submerged his lungs in water while undergoing a drowning event or if the effects of drowning took time to develop.
Doctors regard such a move as drowning in most instances. It is crucial that you acknowledge how these dissimilar events look and the indications related to them.
What are the signs of drowning?
Moreover, as Patrick said, drowning is a “significant injury from being immersed in water.”
During the normal or regular functioning of the lungs, a person inhales oxygen, which would enter the person’s bloodstream, as USA Today reported.
While exhaling, carbon monoxide is released from the bloodstream and sent back into the air.
The expert explained that in case of drowing, when water enters one’s lungs, “your body can’t extract oxygen from the water,” which leads to person’s body normal functioning becoming impared.
Moreover, without the availability of sufficient oxygen presence, one person suffers from suffocation.
Drowning is, in fact, a very quick process and severe harm can be inflicted within as little as 20-60 seconds. The symptoms of drowning are well defined — people are very likely to be quiet, their hands outstretched like they are holding something, their head submerged, bouncing up and down in the water, and their arms are straight out and stiff, according to WebMD.
More about ‘dry drowning’
In actual sense, dry drowning does not involve water entering the lungs as possibly observed in other drowning cases, according to Detroit Medical Center.
Still, Patrick added that when water enters the respiratory system through the nose or mouth, followed by inhaling it, the muscles around the vocal cords close. As such, this contraction reduces your ability to breathe properly since air is the only thing that gets into your lungs.
Additionally, it becomes hard to insert a breathing tube into your throat. One of these common assumptions is that this event might happen hours after getting in touch with water; in his view, it is rather more probable that this would happen right after getting in touch with water.
What is secondary drowning?
As Patrick explains, “Secondary drowning” is another rate situation where the symptoms do not appear immediately.
He said, “Sometimes you can get a little bit of water down in the lungs, but it’s not enough water to actually impede oxygen delivery.”
However, in order to explain one’s experince of “delayed” symptoms of drowning he said, that deep in our lungs there is “a soapy substance called surfactant, [which] keeps the little tiny air sacs open.”
However, if sufficient want goes inside the lungs, it could wash away the surfactant, which would result in the air sacs present inside the lungs to burst.
Therefore, as a result, “the body responds to that by actually drawing fluid into the lungs,” which is medically known as a pulmonary edema, said Patrick.
Myths about secondary drowning
He added that the biggest myth linked with “secondary drowning” is that people think it could occur after days when the event had taken place after submerging into the water.
He added, “It does not — it still is within 24 hours,” and during the intermittent period, it is necessary to “keep a really close eye [on your] kids or anyone who’s had any sort of event in the water.”
Nevertheless, “if they’re fine at the 24-hour mark, they’re going to remain fine,” added Patrick.