My first near-drowning

My first near-drowning

One would not think of a near-drowning as a major issue in life or even becoming a serious health problem as the fact remains you are alive, you survived and you didn’t drown. Likely, some near drownings in the older days never saw an emergency room as the problem was solved once you were seeing breathing on your own or no longer in distress. Realistically, drowning is the third most common death in the USA but not much is said about near-drownings. 

Worldwide about 150,000 people drown annually. Statistical reporting on near-drowning is unreliable, but experts have estimated that there may be 600 near-drowning incidents for every reported drowning death.  Supposedly there are two times in your life when you are at great risk of drowning.  The first is when you are 5 years old or younger and the other is between 15 and 25 years old even when you are left unattended or unsupervised. 

I was nearly 14 when I experienced my near-drowning. I was with a group of church going youth called the Youth Fellowship and invited to a birthday party in Ohio for a kid who had a big house and a big back yard with a pool. There must have been at least twenty or more kids there and the party was rambunctious as can be. Curiously, I saw very few adults but that didn’t matter to me as it was a great time to have fun and fun it was. Summertime, hot and humid and right after all the presents were opened we went swimming. 

Not bragging about being a good swimmer I blended in with the group and tossed a beach ball round as well as other water games designed to get you wet. I had learned to swim young when I lived on the islands surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and never feared water. I would jump off the high dive, jump into the deep section and float or drift until I was exhausted. 

There were no drugs there. No alcohol and nothing I could think of that made the party a dangerous place to be but when I realized a certain group of boys a few years older than me were pushing and grabbing others younger especially the girls, things started to get out of hand. I could tell something bad was going to happen. It was only a matter of time. 

Risk taking behavior was my middle name. I could and would take a dare as easy as I would make one. Without grownups around, the place became rowdy and I could sense this would lead to something bad but I kept playing and diving off the springboard to show off to the girls my diving skills. 

Without warning almost immediately after I dove into the water I could feel myself struggling to go back to the top and take a breath of air. I struggled and before I realized what was happening, I had been grappling with three older boys who were trying to hold me down under the water and making me swallow pool water as I had opened my mouth trying to breathe as I was close to reaching the top before they pulled me down again and held me down against the bottom of the pool until I stopped resisting. 

It was likely I passed out or became unconscious as the last thing I remember was seeing a bright light likened to the sun and a voice whispering in my ear to relax and stop fighting them. It could have been from sheer exhaustion I stopped struggling or I was too weak to fight anymore. Mind you, this is all speculation as I really don’t know what happened when I was unconscious. 

Without my knowledge or awareness somebody saw me down at the bottom of the pool and with the help of another person they got me out of the pool and dragged me to the edge laying me down on my back and then my side. I was not breathing but like I said before, I didn’t know that at the time. The theory is that I survived because I hadn’t ingested enough water to make the difference between life and death. 

I have been told later on that the effects of near-drownings on the body impacts the mind as well. The first concern was any damage done when the body was denied oxygen and air was not getting to my brain, my lungs and my heart. The second damage of this event was purely psychological as I feared deep water and mistrusted anyone near me when around the water. This fear or paranoia would last a lifetime.