PEDIATRICS Vol. 46 No. 6 December 1970, pp. 967
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BOOK OF ACCIDENTS

Excerpt VI: Drowning

Thomas E. Cone Jr. M.D.

drownings are presently the third leading cause of accidental death of children living in the United States.1 This statistic gives grisly evidence of the need to alter the grossly distorted picture most parents offer their children about water. Daily in their bath children are led to believe that they are unsinkable. "See baby swim," and "Mother won't let water hurt him" is scarcely realistic education for the child's first accidental solo exposure to a body of water.2

Even today one would search long and hard to find a lesson about accidental drowning with the trenchant impact of the figure and lesson below.3

Modern readers will also note that the unknown author of this little book was well aware of two well known facts about drowning; namely, that males drown far more frequently than do females (the incidence is 4:1), and that in the majority of drownings, the boy gets into trouble because of "not being sensible of the danger of water."