Dad issues urgent swimming costume warning after daughter, 5, almost drowns | The Sun
A DAD issued a stark warning to other parents about mermaid tail swimsuits after his daughter nearly drowned wearing one.
Adam Lisberg took to Twitter to share the ordeal, which resulted in his five-year-old daughter Annabelle spending two days in hospital.
He shared his "scary story" via a tweet thread in July 2020 "as a warning about kids, pools and swimsuits, because I don’t want anyone else’s kids to end up in the ER or the ICU, like she did for two days", he wrote.
The dad recounted buying matching mermaid swim outfits for his two little girls Annabelle and Ruby – aged five and seven at the time – to wear in the inflatable pool they'd placed in their driveway for the summer.
Adam also shared a picture of the pool with Annabelle stepping out of it, to show that the water in only reached "up to her legs".
"We know to be careful and we know kids can drown in anything and we know to watch them … and still, things can happen," he wrote.
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The incident occurred on a Sunday afternoon, during which Adam described keeping a close watch on while "the mermaids were in the pool".
"I was in the kitchen overlooking the pool, window open so I could hear them, looking at them every minute or two," the dad recalled.
"Then Ruby came inside and told me calmly that Annabelle was underwater, and wasn’t moving, so she pulled her out."
Adam recalled at first thinking this was a prank, but the sight of his five-year-old "lying on the ground next to the pool, arms inside her mermaid tail, not moving" confirmed the grim reality of the situation.
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The horrified dad recalled: "She was lying exactly like a TV mermaid washed up on the shore. But when I picked her up, her eyes were wide open and she didn’t react."
In that moment, Adam thought his daughter was dead, he wrote.
Then Annabelle coughed a little, but her eyes still didn't change.
Adam described wondering if this was "what no oxygen to the brain looks like" and trying to remember techniques from a CPR class he'd taken when seven-year-old Ruby was born.
The dad sat down, put his daughter over his lap and slapped her back, at which point she started coughing more and crying.
"Water, mucus, then vomit. This is all good," he wrote. The dad then called 911, while Annabelle cried more but still couldn't "form words".
Adam later gathered from his two daughters what exactly had happened.
According to Ruby, Annabelle had "pulled that mermaid tail up to her shoulders and tucked her arms inside.
"And as Annabelle told us later, she tried to 'play potato' by lying down in the water. But she couldn’t reach her hands out to get up."
The dad described being haunted by his youngest daughter's recollection: "Annabelle said she tried to talk, but the words just turned into bubbles. I will never get that image out of my head."
He credited his seven-year-old for being "the best big sister in the whole world" and saving Annabelle's life, as she pulled her sibling's head out of the water, before pulling her completely out of the pool, when she noticed she “wasn’t coming up”.
“She guessed Annabelle was only under for about 30 seconds,” he wrote.
The little one still spent two days in the paediatric ICU, as "even a little water in the lungs, especially if it has chlorine, can spark a delayed reaction as the body fights the injury", according to Adam.
Annabelle "had a temperature and elevated pulse and breathing for almost a day after [and] needed oxygen to kick it", he went on.
The dad described feeling “indescribably lucky” when Annabelle came home,still the “same giggly bubbly silly sparkly girl she was".
“I cannot imagine what it’s like to be the parent who didn’t get lucky like this,” he wrote.
Adam concluded by saying he hoped this tale "haunted" other parents, so that they "never take any kids’ safety for granted, especially in water, no matter how shallow, even for a minute".
"And maybe skip the mermaid tail. She’ll be okay without it," he added.
Lee Heard, charity director at Royal Lifesaving Society UK (RLSS) previously warned parents to never leave their little ones unsupervised in a paddling pool.
"Sadly drowning can happen very quickly, so it’s vital to ensure that you do not leave your child alone when they are in or near water," he told The Sun.
And he advised you empty the pool as soon as your tot is done swimming, to avoid accidents while you're not keeping watch.
Just a few inches of water can be deadly and drowning is one of the most common causes of accidental death in children.
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According to Lee, 26 children aged 14 and under lost their life to accidental drowning in the UK in 2022.
A mum also recently warned other parents to not put their kids in blue bathing suits for swimming, as it makes them harder to spot in pool and sea water.
Advice for parents from The RLSS Drowning Prevention Society
To keep your kids safe…
- Always lock gates and fences to stop kids from gaining access to water.
- Securely cover all water tanks and drains.
- Empty paddling pools and buckets straight after use, and turn them upside down.
- Always supervise bath time, and empty the bath immediately afterwards.
- Check the safety arrangements before going on holiday – is there a lifeguard at the beach?
- Check bathing sites for hazards, and always read the signs.
- Always swim with your kids, and beware of dangerous rip currents in the sea.
- Never use lilos and dinghies in open water – there are drownings every year where people are dragged out to sea.
- Don't swim near rocks, piers, breakwater or coral.
- Swim parallel to the beach, and close to the shore.
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