Two of a mother’s children drowned in a pool over the Memorial Day weekend in Philadelphia. This shows how dangerous breath-holding games can be in the water, even for kids who are usually good swimmers.
Brittney McWhite chose to turn off life support for London Marie, 11, and Wadale, 14, at the beginning of last month.
A week earlier, everything was fine in McWhite’s home, and she and her six kids went to New Jersey to eat at their aunt’s house for Memorial Day.
“I said, “Okay, I’ll help set up the food” when we got there. The kids were having fun in the pool. They were playing a game called “Marco Polo” where you have to hold your breath when you fall down.
McWhite realized she couldn’t see her kids, who could both swim, after three or four minutes.
The two kids were pulled out of the pool by family members who jumped in. “When they got out, it was all hands on deck,”
“I know how to do CPR.” McWhite said, “But when it’s your child, you go into shock; everything is a shock for you; you can’t do the thing you know how to do.”
Fox 29 Philadelphia said that Monroe Township Police got a call at 6:46 p.m. saying that the two kids had drowned.
London At Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Marie and Wadale were on life support for seven days. Their mother said that both of them had seizures every day and showed no signs of brain activity when they were first taken to the hospital.
“The only thing keeping them alive was the machines,” she said. There was a small window of hope when both kids started to take small breaths on their own.
“Don’t leave your kids alone. Tell your kids you love them right now. “In the end, all you have are memories,” McWhite told Fox News Digital. “That’s awful, you’ll never get those back. You still have a family even though it’s hard. “You don’t have time to be sad.”
McWhite said that she and her kids will be extra careful in the water from now on.
“I’ll be there and present all the time.” “Give them life jackets, floaties, or anything else they need,” McWhite said.
“My recommendation for parents is to prevent [their] kids from holding their breath while going underwater,” she stated. “If they are going to go underwater, definitely make sure that they have eyes on them at all times; just because they know how to swim [doesn’t mean] freak accidents [can’t] happen.”
A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that “dangerous underwater breath-holding behaviors” can make healthy people drown without their choice. They can die from “hypoxic blackout” or “breath-hold blackout” while swimming.
Shallow Water Blackout Prevention, a non-profit group that works to bring attention to these kinds of deaths, says that they happen when a swimmer passes out because their brain isn’t getting enough air. This can happen if you hold your breath too long or too often. The swimmer quickly drowns if help is not given right away.
The group was started by the mother of a young man who died while doing breath-holding exercises in his family’s swimming pool. Michael Phelps, an Olympic diver, supports the group.
Also, lifeguards and other adults can mistake children who are dying at the bottom of the pool for kids who are playing games where they hold their breath.
The YMCA where lifeguard Jeff Little works has signs that say you can’t hold your breath. “This is the new ‘no diving,'” he told WRAL. The signs are similar to those around pool decks that say you shouldn’t dive in small parts of pools to protect your spine.
