Management of secondary drowning - Dr. Sanjay Panicker

Описание: Secondary drowning is a term given to group of symptoms which may appear in a person who has had a near drowning experience. Like for example, I had a friend of mine, whose child underwent drowning, near-drowning experience and they just somehow pulled out the child on time and saved him. But he kept coughing throughout the day and by the end of the day, he was still coughing on and off and he seemed little distracted and not able to focus on what we were telling him and was not able pay attention to the things and he was kind of dull, lethargic, restless. This kind of presentation was there and he was going on coughing. So without maybe this little bit of bad effect of drowning was there and he was still coughing out the water on and off little bit. So then, my friend called up the pediatrician and found out what exactly is the issue and then the pediatrician said, bring him immediately to the hospital. So here what has happened is that water has got accumulated in the small alveoli which are you know small pockets in the lungs which store oxygen and when water starts getting accumulated inside the oxygen level starts dripping after sometime. It does not happen immediately. The child is saved, the child comes out, tries to cough out, but the water which is locked in cannot be brought out. So the oxygen starts dipping after sometime maybe towards, if this happened in the morning, by evening or night it starts dipping and sometimes in certain children it has happened that they have slept and morning they have not got up. So this is what is secondary drowning and when the oxygen dips, the patient can collapse. So here, hospital management is important. You have to keep the child in 100% oxygenation and you must see that he is well ventilated and certain medicines has to be given to see that the bad effects of drowning can be cleared. This can only be hospitally managed, managed in a hospital and so it requires immediate intervention.