Sarasota, Florida. Every parent (heck, every adult) knows the pool can be a dangerous place for a child. You always have to take care and keep an eye on children while they swim.
We also have all seen warnings on pool floats and keeping children safe from suffocating on them if they pop, or that they can’t be used as a flotation device.
Those are the obvious things to worry about, but a pool noodle? I’m sure it never crossed your mind, but you need to beware of your children around pool noodles too.
A little girl named Elianna was just 4-years-old and swimming in her grandparent’s Florida pool while under supervision when something went terribly wrong.
She was playing games with a pool noodle when things took a tragic turn and this game nearly cost this poor little girl her life. Elianna’s mom, Lacey, said in a Facebook post that “she was blowing in one end and blowing water out the other.”
In what can only be described as a completely freak accident, Elianna placed her mouth on the pool noodle to blow out the end of it at the exact time that another person blew into the second end of the noodle.
Water ended up whooshing down Elianna’s throat, and although she vomited right afterward, she seemed alright. Half an hour later she was back to her normal self. She was eating and playing and nothing appeared to be wrong with her at all.
The day after the accident, Elianna seemed alright as well. But then, she came down with a fever and Lacey didn’t consider it to be a problem since it commonly happens with kids.
It went away, Elianna went to school, and then Lacey received a phone call saying that Elianna again had a fever. Lacey recalled a story she heard about a year ago while she was contemplating what to do. The story she had heard involved a Dad whose son died from inhaling pool water.
Lacey sprung into action.
Lacey took Elianna to an urgent care, where the doctor who examined her initially thought she was ok. After 10 minutes of them being there, the doctor suggested they get to an ER, because Elianna’s skin was turning purple, her oxygen was low, and her heart rate was skyrocketing.
What could be wrong with her?
Elianna was admitted to the ER, where she had chest x-rays done that revealed she had an infection along with inflammation due to pool chemicals. She was diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia and could not breathe on her own. She had to be put on oxygen.
Thankfully, Elianna ended up recovering, but Lacey shared her story in the hopes that she could prevent the same thing from happening to another child.
“If your child inhales a bunch of water, and something seems off AT ALL, I encourage you to immediately get help,” Lacey wrote.
“I wonder if I would have taken her Monday, would she be better off?? And I wonder if I waited longer what would have happened. It’s so scary.”
