LIHUE — Three children under 10 years old have drowned on Kauai in the last 10 years.
Dr. Monty Downs wants that number to be zero from here on out.
While childhood drowning is not an epidemic on Kauai, it is devastating, he said, and it’s something that deserves attention.
The emergency room physician, who has worked at Wilcox Medical Center since the 1970s, has witnessed many drownings throughout his decades of service, but it’s the families that lose a child that are some of the most difficult to experience. Not only because it’s an unnatural order of life events, but also because there’s a heavy burden of guilt that can plague family members, he said.
But the reason for the tragedy is not because of “bad parenting” or irresponsible adults, because it only takes an insignificant distraction, and a matter of mere moments, for an accident to occur, he said before about 30 people at Thursday’s Lihue Business Association meeting at Duke’s Canoe Club.
State Department of Health Kauai District Health Officer Dr. Janet Berreman joined Downs to talk about some of the best ways to ensure that children don’t fall victim to the dangers of water. A recent childhood drowning on Kauai spurred Berreman’s concern, and so she said her department started to look into childhood drowning incidents and how to prevent them.
Drowning was the leading cause of accidental death for 1-to-5-year-olds (almost all of them kama‘aina) between 2011 and 2015 in Hawaii. Of those, almost 70 percent were non-ocean-related, and occurred in pools, bathtubs or freshwater.
“I think as an island state community, we think a lot about the ocean,” she said.
But that’s not actually where most childhood drownings happen, she added.
One example of a situation that has occurred is when a group of adults convenes for a pool party with their children, but no one is specifically tasked with keeping an eye on them, she said.
“Everybody assumes that somebody else is watching,” Berreman said.
Those are some of the most distressful incidents, she added.
Installing fencing around pools is one of the best preventative actions to take. And wearing life jackets that are specifically Coast Guard approved are worth every penny, Downs said.
Swimming lessons are another way to mitigate drownings, Berreman said.
Berreman and Downs are also proponents of having a designated person watching the children. In fact, Downs, who also serves as president of the Kauai Lifeguard Association, has been instrumental in creating tags, which are almost ready for distribution, that adults can wear, that identifies them as Designated Child Water Watchers.
When someone is wearing the tag, they resolve not to imbibe or be on their cell phones. They also can’t engage in other activities that cause distraction or the need to leave the premises, until the responsibility is passed along to someone else willing to make the same commitment and agreeing to wear the tag.
“No one of these things is going to prevent all drownings,” Berreman said. “But at least doing something will help.”
Berreman also recommends training in CPR in order to be ready for the worst-case scenario.
“I hope you all do it,” she said.
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Coco Zickos, county reporter, can be reached at 245-0424 or czickos@thegardenisland.com.
