A mother-of-two and former paramedic is warning parents of all the surprising ways that children can drown around the home.
According to the CDC, drowning is the top cause of accidental death for children ages one to four — and babies and toddlers can drown in as little as two inches of water.
To warn parents of the unexpected dangers facing kids around the house, Nikki Jurcutz, a former paramedic with seven years of experience in Australia, has shared an Instagram video pointing out all of the places that pose a risk — and showing what moms and dads should do to reliminate it.
Shocking: A mother-of-two and former paramedic is warning parents of all the surprising ways that children can drown around the home
Close that lid! Nikki Jurcutz has shared an Instagram video pointing out all of the places that pose a risk, including toilets
Shallow: Since babies and toddlers can drown in as little as two inches of water, even bath tubs are risky
‘The drowning jobs I attended as a paramedic still haunt me to this day,’ Nikki wrote, captioning a January 5 clip.
‘It happens with only a small amount of water, in just 20 seconds and is silent,’ she said. ‘This is particularly devastating, as most of these can be prevented.’
In the video, she goes around her home showing sources of water that can be surprisingly risky, demonstrating how to make them safer.
In the bathroom, she points out the toilet, where several inches of water can take a child’s life. She shuts the lid to reduce the risk.
She drains the tub in her bathroom, and also empties out a cleaning bucket full of water.
Even large bowls and cups of water can prove dangerous, for instance, if a child falls asleep or passes out with their face inside.
In her caption, Nikki advises parents to supervise their kids while they are in and around water, eliminate hazards, and restrict their children’s access do any body of water.
Careful! Any water, including in a bucket used for cleaning, can be dangerous
Caution: She urges people to eliminate risk by dumping out bowls and draining tubs
She also urges them to learn CPR, teach children to swim, and warn them to be wary of drains.
Commenters have called Nikki’s video ‘scary,’ though several pointed out its importance.
‘I will never forget walking into the toilet by chance to find my only just-walking baby dangling down into the toilet bowl and only just caught him from going head first into the water. Had I have been 15 seconds later…’ wrote one.
‘A 1 year old baby from my home town drowned in a dog’s bowl a few months ago,’ wrote another. ‘Horrifying. Something most parents wouldn’t think was possible.’
‘I had a HORRIFIC near miss with a daughter intrigued by anything messy,’ wrote yet another. ‘Unknown to me she was dropping toys in the toilet. The silence got me worried and I went off to look for her.
‘I walked past the bathroom just as she lost her balance leaning. She was head first. Into the water of the toilet. If I hadn’t have walked by,’ she said.
According to Stephen Robert, MD, associate director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Cedars-Sinai, just one to two inches of water is enough to drown a child.
‘People know to watch children around pools, beaches and lakes, but they are often less vigilant about smaller hazards like bathtubs, toilet bowls, inflatable kiddie pools, flooded ditches or bird baths,’ he said.
Scary stuff: Commenters have called Nikki’s video ‘scary,’ though several pointed out its importance
Statistics: According to the CDC, drowning is the top cause of accidental death for children ages one to four
Drowning is particularly threatening to young children, he went on, ‘because these toddlers are mobile and innately curious, naturally exploring their environment and typically unable to swim.’
He added: ‘Water safety is a hands-on experience—which means parents should remain physically present throughout their child’s bath time and be close enough to touch a child in the pool who isn’t yet a strong swimmer.’
Dr. Maribeth Chitkara, an associate professor of pediatrics at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital in New York, told CBS News in 2015 that while about half of drowning deaths of young children are in pools, the other half are in ‘other’ water sources like bathtubs, play tables that use water, dog bowls, toilet bowls, coolers in which ice has melted, and cleaning buckets.
‘You have a party and you have a cooler with some drinks in it. The ice melts when you leave the cooler open and there’s an inch of water in the bottom of that,’ she said.
‘That’s a cooler that you wouldn’t even think of as being a drowning risk. Even if you have a lid closed, any innocent toddler could come, open it up and fall right in.
‘I think that any body of water has to be taken seriously,’ she added. ‘People who don’t have pools sometimes don’t think that they need to be as concerned.’
