Top

BMC Public Health

Published in:

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Research article

Mortality among drowning rescuers in China, 2013: a review of 225 rescue incidents from the press

Authors: Yinchao Zhu, Xia Jiang, Hui Li, Fudong Li, Jieping Chen

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2015

Abstract

Background

Drowning is common worldwide. Rescue efforts attempted by untrained bystanders often lead to the death of the primary drowning victim (PDV), the rescuer or both. Our study aimed to inform prevention by identifying risk factors in rescuer drowning.

Methods

Data on drowning rescue incidents reported online in mainland China, 2013, were reviewed. Information on the drowning incidents, PDVs and rescuers were retrieved for analysis.

Results

A total of 225 rescue incidents were identified, of which 14 were victim-rescuer drowning incidents (VRDIs) (6.2 %). A person-to-person rescue by swimming to PDVs was the most commonly used method (58.9 %). Resuscitation was given immediately to 35.5 % of PDVs after rescue. The mortality rate of the rescuers (13.3 %) was similar to that of the PDVs (11.5 %) (χ² = 0.5, p =0.49). Being an adult (OR = 0.2, 95 % CI: 0.1–0.5) and other than the first rescuer (OR = 0.4, 95 % CI: 0.2–0.9) decreased the risk of rescuers drowning.

Conclusions

Most of the currently employed life-saving methods are dangerous and even potentially life threatening. The idea of “rescuers’ safety first” should be embraced, especially with teenage and child rescuers, who should never be encouraged to rescue others without first guaranteeing their own safety. Promotion of basic rescue skills should be implemented in the general public.

van Beeck EF, Branche CM, Szpilman D, Modell JH, Bierens JJ. A new definition of drowning: towards documentation and prevention of a global public health problem. Bull World Health Organ. 2005;83(11):853–6. doi:/S0042-96862005001100015.

Weiss J. American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention. Prevention of drowning. Pediatrics. 2010;126(1):e253–62. doi:10.1542/peds.2010-1265.CrossRefPubMed

Schilling UM, Bortolin M. Drowning. Minerva Anestesiol. 2012;78(1):69–77.PubMed

Soar J, Perkins GD, Abbas G, Alfonzo A, Barelli A, Bierens JJ, et al. European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation 2010 Section 8. Cardiac arrest in special circumstances: Electrolyte abnormalities, poisoning, drowning, accidental hypothermia, hyperthermia, asthma, anaphylaxis, cardiac surgery, trauma, pregnancy, electrocution. Resuscitation. 2010;81(10):1400–33. doi:10.1016/j.resuscitation.2010.08.015.CrossRefPubMed

Hyder AA, Borse NN, Blum L, Khan R, El Arifeen S, Baqui AH. Childhood drowning in low- and middle-income countries: Urgent need for intervention trials. J Paediatr Child Health. 2008;44(4):221–7. doi:10.1111/j.1440-1754.2007.01273.x.CrossRefPubMed

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drowning--United States, 2005-2009. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2012;61(19):344–7.

Jagnoor J, Suraweera W, Keay L, Ivers RQ, Thakur J, Jha P, et al. Unintentional injury mortality in India, 2005: nationally representative mortality survey of 1.1 million homes. BMC Public Health. 2012;12:487. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-487.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

World Health Organization. Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability. 2004. http://wwwwhoint/mediacentre/factsheets/fs347/en/. Accessed Feb 2004.

Lunetta P, Smith GS, Penttila A, Sajantila A. Unintentional drowning in Finland 1970-2000: a population-based study. Int J Epidemiol. 2004;33(5):1053–63. doi:10.1093/ije/dyh194.CrossRefPubMed

10.

Ahlm K, Saveman BI, Bjornstig U. Drowning deaths in Sweden with emphasis on the presence of alcohol and drugs - a retrospective study, 1992-2009. BMC Public Health. 2013;13:216. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-216.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

11.

Armour-Marshall J, Wolfe I, Richardson E, Karanikolos M, McKee M. Childhood deaths from injuries: trends and inequalities in Europe. Eur J Public Health. 2012;22(1):61–5. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckr004.CrossRefPubMed

12.

Prameprart M, Lim A, Tongkumchum P. Modeling unintentional drowning mortality rates in Thailand, 2000-2009. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2013. doi:10.1177/1010539513488796.

13.

Wang LJ, Hu N, Wan X, Zhou MG, Wang J. Status and trend of injury deaths among Chinese population, 1991-2005. Zhonghua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2010;44(4):309–13.PubMed

14.

Pearn JH, Franklin RC. The Impulse to Rescue": rescue altruism and the challenge of saving the rescuer. Int J Aquat Res Educ. 2012;6(4):325–35.

15.

Venema AM, Groothoff JW, Bierens JJ. The role of bystanders during rescue and resuscitation of drowning victims. Resuscitation. 2010;81(4):434–9. doi:10.1016/j.resuscitation.2010.01.005.CrossRefPubMed

16.

Franklin RC, Pearn JH. Drowning for love: the aquatic victim-instead-of-rescuer syndrome: drowning fatalities involving those attempting to rescue a child. J Paediatr Child Health. 2011;47(1-2):44–7. doi:10.1111/j.1440-1754.2010.01889.x.CrossRefPubMed

17.

Turgut A, Turgut T. A study on rescuer drowning and multiple drowning incidents. J Safety Res. 2012;43(2):129–32. doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2012.05.001.CrossRefPubMed

18.

Brons R, Brewster C, Espino M, Goto R, Short A, Wright R, et al. Task Force on Rescue- Organisational Aspects: Rescue Planning, Trainning and preparation. In: Brons R, Brewster C, editors. Handbook on Drowning Prevention, Rescue, Treatment. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag; 2006. p. 135–87.CrossRef

19.

Brewster C, Brons R, Zwitser E, Sims B, Fenner P, Griffiths T, et al. Task Force on Rescue- Rescue Techniques. In: Brewster C, Brons R, editors. Handbook on Drowning Prevention, Rescue, Treatment. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag; 2006. p. 193–308.CrossRef

20.

Castan J, Wirtz S, Moecke H, Schmidbauer W, Bubser F, Kerner T. First therapy of drowning accident. Anasthesiol Intensivmed Notfallmed Schmerzther. 2009;44(7-8):486–93. doi:10.1055/s-0029-1237101.CrossRefPubMed

21.

International Lifesaving Federation[ILS]. World Drowning Report(2007 Edition). Leuven:Ils. 2007.

22.

Geier CF. Adolescent cognitive control and reward processing: implications for risk taking and substance use. Horm Behav. 2013;64(2):333–42. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.02.008.CrossRefPubMed

23.

Barton BK, Ulrich T, Lyday B. The roles of gender, age and cognitive development in children's pedestrian route selection. Child Care Health Dev. 2012;38(2):280–6. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2010.01202.x.CrossRefPubMed

24.

Gulliver P, Begg D. Usual water-related behaviour and 'near-drowning' incidents in young adults. Aust N Z J Public Health. 2005;29(3):238–43.CrossRefPubMed

25.

Pearn JH, Gardner-Medwin D. An Anzac's childhood: John Simpson Kirkpatrick (1892-1915). Med J Aust. 2003;178(8):400–2.PubMed

26.

Ma WJ, Nie SP, Xu HF, Xu YJ, Song XL, Guo QZ, et al. An analysis of risk factors of non-fatal drowning among children in rural areas of Guangdong Province, China: a case-control study. BMC Public Health. 2010;10:156. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-156.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

27.

Quanx N, Li Y. Analysis on drowning among children in rural areas of Guangxi province. Chin J Public Health. 2006;22(9):1043–4.

28.

Petridou E, Klimentopoulou A. Risk Factors for Drowning. In: Branche C, Van Beeck E, editors. Handbook on Drowning Prevention, Rescue, Treatment. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag; 2006. p. 63–9.

29.

Moran K. Getting Out of the Water: How Hard Can That Be? IJARE. 2014;8(4):321–37 http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/ijare.2014-0054.

30.

Pearn JH, Franklin RC. “Flingin the Squaler” Lifeline Rescues for Drowning Prevention. Int J Aquat Res Educ. 2009;3:315–21.

31.

Ding WT. Enlightment from the Hero Group Reported on the 24, Oct. Young Journalists. 2009;35:29–30.

32.

Connolly J. Suicide by Drowning in Ireland. Irish Life Saving Foundation, http://lifesavingfoundationie/pages/publications/internal/suicidebydrowninirewwscpdf. Accessed 12 Jun 2011.

33.

Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft [DLRG]. Teilnehmerbroschüre Rettungsschwimmen [in English: Participant Brochure of Lifesaving in Water]. Bad Nenndorf: DLRG. 2005a.

34.

Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft [DLRG]. Handbuch Rettungsschwimmen [in English: Handbook of Lifesaving]. Bad Nenndorf: DLRG. 2005b.

35.

Pepe P, Bierens J, Wigginton J, Mann D, Persse D, Sirbaugh P, et al. Resuscitation. In: Pepe P, Bierens J, editors. Handbook on Drowning Prevention, Rescue, Treatment. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag; 2006. p. 312–77.

36.

Mosayebi Z, Movahedian AH, Mousavi GA. Drowning in children in Iran: outcomes and prognostic factors. Med J Malaysia. 2011;66(3):187–90.PubMed

37.

Langley J. Review of Literature on Available Strategies for Drowning Prevention. In: Branche C, Van Beeck E, editors. Handbook on Drowning Prevention, Rescue, Treatment. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag; 2006. p. 70–3.

38.

Topjian AA, Berg RA. Pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Circulation. 2012;125(19):2374–8. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.071472.CrossRefPubMed

39.

Nitta M, Iwami T, Kitamura T, Nadkarni VM, Berg RA, Shimizu N, et al. Age-specific differences in outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. Pediatrics. 2011;128(4):e812–20. doi:10.1542/peds.2010-3886.CrossRefPubMed

40.

Barss P, Subait OM, Ali MH, Grivna M. Drowning in a high-income developing country in the Middle East: newspapers as an essential resource for injury surveillance. J Sci Med Sport. 2009;12(1):164–70. doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2007.08.016.CrossRefPubMed

41.

Baullinger J, Quan L, Bennett E, Cummings P, Williams K. Use of Washington State newspapers for submersion injury surveillance. Inj Prev. 2001;7(4):339–42.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

42.

Ghaffar A, Hyder AA, Bishai D. Newspaper reports as a source for injury data in developing countries. Health Policy Plan. 2001;16(3):322–5.CrossRefPubMed

Title: Mortality among drowning rescuers in China, 2013: a review of 225 rescue incidents from the press
Authors: Yinchao Zhu
Xia Jiang
Hui Li
Fudong Li
Jieping Chen
Publication date: 01-12-2015
Publisher: BioMed Central
Published in: BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2010-0

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Mortality among drowning rescuers in China, 2013: a review of 225 rescue incidents from the press

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 1/2015

Perceptions of Sudanese women of reproductive age toward HIV/AIDS and services for Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV

Associations between diet, physical activity and body fat distribution: a cross sectional study in an Indian population

Cardiovascular risk factors and 30-year cardiovascular risk in homeless adults with mental illness

No effect of unemployment on intimate partner-related femicide during the financial crisis: a longitudinal ecological study in Spain

Tobacco use and household expenditures on food, education, and healthcare in low- and middle-income countries: a multilevel analysis

Modeling the impact of tuberculosis interventions on epidemiologic outcomes and health system costs