Among ages 1-14, drowning is the second-leading
cause of unintentional injury-related death behind
motor vehicle crashes.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com 25
WBM
Red Cross Statistics on Drowning
79% of children
in households
with incomes
less than $50K
have little to no
swim training.
64% of African Ameri-can,
45% of Hispanic/
Latino, and 40% of
Caucasian children
have few to no swim-ming
skills.
Ten people die
each day from
unintentional
drowning, and
on average two
of them are
under 14.
Drowning is responsible for more deaths among
children ages 1 to 4 than any other cause except
birth defects.
For every child who dies from drowning,
another five receive emergency care for
nonfatal submersion injuries.
Children with autism
spectrum disorder are 160
times more likely to expe-rience
nonfatal and fatal
drowning than their typi-cally
developing peers.
