Parenthood can be tough. Kids can be notorious and a lot of trouble and that is okay and things start to mess up when kids get ill. Parents always want to believe that whenever their little ones fall ill there is something minor- a fever, a cold which can be taken care of but that is where they commit a mistake. In today's time, there is no dearth of illnesses and problems and no symptoms should be taken for granted. Whenever kids fall sick or complain of any kind of pain they should be immediately taken to a doctor, sometimes things are bigger than what appears on the surface and unnecessary tragedies can be averted.
Last year, a family could not understand the symptoms of their kid's illness and it ended tragically for them, something similar happened to Lacey's daughter.
It was a day like any other, Lacey prepared her 4-year-old daughter and sent her to preschool. She went to her work and did not expect to meet her daughter again before the school ended. However, her expectations were proven wrong and she was left in the state of anxiety when she received a call from the school that her daughter was running a fever and needed to be picked up. Lacey did not think much of it right then. She went to pick up her daughter and took care her straight to the hospital. Was she overreacting to a minor fever?
Lacey was informed by the school administration that as part of the protocol Elianna should not be sent to school for at least one day. This was in order to prevent the fever from spreading in case it was some communicable illness and also to give parents time to have the kid tested. Lacey has two daughters Elianna and the other one is just two years old. It is normal for kids to have a fever, therefore Lacey did not think of it much but something had happened just a few days ago that really worried her and that made her take her daughter straight to the hospital.
It was a regular Saturday, like any other child, Elianna was playing with a “pool noodle” in the family pool; blowing on the one end of the noodle so that water came out of the other end. In an interview with abc news Lacey Grace, the mother of the four-year-old Elianna said, "It was just a fun game, you know when somebody would go by or swim by and she would take the noodle and pretend she wasn't looking and shoot whatever at them and then somebody wanted to do it back to her and didn't realise that she was already on the other end of it." And expectedly the water went into her mouth and Elianna accidentally swallowed it.
Elianna vomited right after the incident in the pool but that was it. After that she went back to playing with people around her; it was as if nothing had happened. She was playing, eating and goofing around after 30 minutes as she normally would do. Even the next day she was fine. However, the Monday after the weekend, she developed a fever. Lacey thought that it was nothing too out of ordinary as kids developing a fever is pretty normal. She did not send her to school but she also did not think much of it and that is what she says in the video ahead.
It is normal for growing kids to fell sick. They catch bacterias while playing or being exposed to the new environment and most of the illnesses are benign in nature. Like any other kid, Elianna had her share of illnesses too, so did her sister. But on the whole, she had always been a healthy and happy child and did not have any history of any serious illness. So even this fever or the throwing up event did not ring alarm bells in Lacey's head. But something happened soon after that alerted her.
Since Elianna could not go to school, Lacey took her daughter along to her work, in Bradenton, Florida. Elianna slept through most of this day or she sat in the corner of Lacey's office with coloring books or toys. There was nothing out of the normal or so it seemed. Lacey was not very concerned. Elianna still did not show any sort of symptoms and was sent to school on Wednesday, which was a mistake.
When people are new to parenting they get worried and freak out really quickly if they see anything out of the ordinary with their child; mostly it does not turn out to be anything serious. Lacey said, “There are so many times I have taken my kid to the doctor, saying I’m being a worried parent, and they say it’s a viral thing, give it a few days” Lacey explained. However, this time was different. She had known what could happen to her child and she did not want to risk Elianna's life in any way.
Parents are overprotective of their children because they love them. It can be counterproductive at times but in the case of Elianna, Lacey being an over-concerned parent actually saved her from a fatal accident. Lacey is a responsible parent who makes sure to read about every illness and incident related to children that are available online. It was having read about one such incident online that made Lacey alert and she remembered that the incident a dad posted about online, ended tragically. She wanted to avoid a similar end for her daughter at any costs.
Lacey went on to tell her side of the story, "We went from school to the urgent care, hoping the doctor would say “her lungs sound great, it’s just viral, etc”. We were there about 10 minutes when the doctor said to get her to the nearest ER as soon as possible. Her heart rate was crazy high, her oxygen was low, and her skin was turning purple which suggested chemical infection." After that, they "went to the nearest ER where they did a chest X-ray and showed inflammation and infection caused from pool chemicals."
Lacey was reminded of a similar case and she said, "I kept replaying that pool scene in my head and remembered reading a story last year about a Dad in Texas whose son passed away because he went untreated after swallowing a bunch of pool water. I wasn’t going to let that be Elianna." What she is referring to here, is the tragic death of Frankie Delgado III. It had not even been a year since the boy passed away and Elianna developed symptoms similar to him, which made Lacey act out.
It was supposed to be a day like any other, Frankie Delgado III was just splashing in the Texas City Dike, the water was only four feet, the parents did not think that there was anything unsafe for their 4-year-old boy. But soon Frankie started showing symptoms similar to having a stomach bug. He was vomiting and suffering from diarrhea. A few days after the incident Frankie told his dad that he wanted to nap as his shoulders hurt. After a few hours, he snapped awake from it, but not for the best.
Frankie Delgado Jr. told a news station, “Out of nowhere, he just woke up. He said ‘ahhh,’ he took his last breath — and I didn't know what to do no more.” The child was immediately taken to the hospital but the authorities tried to awaken him, to no avail. There was fluid in Frankie's lungs and heart; the doctors informed the family that he was a victim of, "dry drowning". He was pronounced dead by the Houston hospital. It was then that the family decided to share the news with different media outlets.
After's Frankie's death, his parents started sharing his story with multiple media outlets as they wanted to prevent similar deaths and wanted parents to be aware of this rare but fatal illness. The family had created a GoFundMe page for Frankie's funeral expenses and within a few days, managed to raise around $14,000. Death by drowning is really common but not 'dry drowning', most people are not even aware of the term. Thanks to Frankie's parents, Lacey was able to identify the problem with her daughter.
"I wouldn't have known about it if that one person didn't write that story," said Lacey in the interview with the abc news attached ahead, referring to Frankie's tragic death. Lacey recalled the incident after realizing that her daughter's symptoms were similar to that of Frankie's and so she took her to the hospital. Frankie's father's understanding that some parent might someday need help to understand weird symptoms that their children might develop after a day in the pool- turned out to be correct and they did manage to save a life.
In the video attached ahead, Lacey recounts all what and how things happened to her daughter and her own fears. In one interview she said, "Two hours later they transferred her by ambulance to an even larger hospital so they could monitor her around the clock and have pediatric specialists keep an eye on her. She began treatment in the ambulance on the way over." Elianna's condition was serious, she could not have been left unmonitored and she was still in danger.
Despite its name dry drowning involves water. It occurs when water is accidentally swallowed but the person does not drown immediately afterward. It can happen hours after swimming in case water was inhaled. The inhaled water later causes the vocal cords to spasm, closing the person's airways. The fluid starts building up in and around the heart and the lungs. Dry Drowning mostly happens to kids, it very rarely happens to adults. It is rare in itself; it accounts for about 1% of all drownings.
Either 'dry drowning' or 'secondary drowning' occur when water somehow does not find a release and gets trapped in the respiratory tract. In the case of dry drowning, airway spasms are created by inhaled water without even reaching the lungs. In the case of secondary drowning, the inhaled water goes into the lungs which can potentially cause pulmonary edema. As a consequence, the person faces difficulty in breathing as the body fails to get enough oxygen. This can cause death even after days of the incident of inhaling water.
Coughing, chest pain, vomiting, and extreme fatigue are the most common symptoms of Dry Drowning. Doctors will do a chest X-ray and monitor oxygen levels to confirm dry drowning.The best prevention is monitoring kids while they swim and in the hours after. If they show any signs of trouble in the pool and show symptoms within 24 hrs, they should be taken to the ER. No symptom or complains of pain after the swim on behalf of the kids should not be taken for granted.
Doctors found out that Elianna was suffering from aspiration pneumonia and had to be on oxygen to rely on it to breathe. They tried removing the tubes and let her try to breathe on her own but she failed to and her levels dropped quickly so she had to be put back on oxygen again. Even by the second dose of antibiotics, there was no improvement in her condition. Her fevers were still high. Nothing seemed to be working till now and Lacey was on the edge of her anxiety.
It is true that initially Lacey had not thought much of Elianna's fever and throwing up but the moment she realized that it could have been a case of dry drowning, she lost no time and rushed her daughter to the hospital. Even then nothing seemed to be working- Elianna's oxygen levels were continuously dropping. If she lost her daughter even after acting on her parental and worry instincts Lacey would not have been able to forgive herself. But then something happened.
After being on the edge of anxiety for some hours, Lacey received news that finally let her breathe. Elianna's heart rate had finally lowered and that was a good news. Lacey recollected, "at least two doctors now have told us “thank God you got her here when you did”. "All the major things going wrong are things you would NEVER notice by looking at her." This came as a major relief to Lacey. She had done her job of bringing her daughter to help at the right time. Now she could just pray.
After it was identified that what was happening to Elianna was 'dry drowning' the doctors immediately put her up on antibiotics which helped her lungs to get rid of the chemicals from the pool. She was kept until she was fever free, her chest X-ray did not show any blockage and could sleep through the entire night without any drastic changes in her oxygen levels. If she had required oxygen more than 3 liters she would have been transferred to Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
After that Elianna only got better and was recovering. 2 days after she was admitted to the hospital, after administering of strong antibiotics, she was eventually capable to breathe on her own again and the wheezing stopped. Elianna's was not a typical case of secondary drowning but Lacey in her mind is sure that she would not have been able to save her daughter or get appropriate help in time if it was not for that article about Frankie. And she admits that on the video ahead.
After all that Lacey, her family, and Elianna had been through Lacey has one request to make to all parents. She says, "If your child swallows/inhales a bunch of water, and something seems off AT ALL, I encourage you to immediately get help. I wonder if I would have taken her Monday, would she be better off?? And I wonder if I waited longer what would have happened. It’s so scary." It is true that sometimes parents' concern turns out to be nothing serious but it is always better to be safe than sorry.
Lacey thought about posting her story and what happened with Elianna online. She said, "I contemplated whether or not this was worth posting, and at the end of the day, I am where I am because of something another Dad posted sometime last year. If I can even help save one child, this is worth it for me." It was the knowledge of nature of Frankie's death that led Lacey to take quick action and maybe, reading her blog some other parent is able to help their kid in time.
Obviously, Lacey was grateful to Frankie's family from Texas for making the story of their child public. It actually saved the life of her daughter because it also made the doctors aware of the rare possibility of 'dry drowning'. An emotional Lacey said,"I thank my lucky stars that I read that article of the little boy. I will find that article and write that Dad a letter, I promise you. I would have never taken her to the urgent care without that and God only knows how this would have ended."
Keeping her promise, Lacey made sure to reach out to Frankie's family. She expressed her gratitude to them for sharing their experience. If they hadn't, Lacey would not have been able to avert the tragedy that knocked at her child's door. She even got a reply from Frankie's sister which said, “Something with your story is making us cry. We miss Frankie every day. We do everything we can to get his story out there to prevent this from happening. We’re glad to see it’s making a difference.”
When Lacey's friends and coworkers got to know that Elianna was suffering from Aspiration Pneumonia, Perihilar Edema, and Chemical Pneumonitis the set up a GoFundMe page for her. She realized the massive amount of medical bills that Lacey would be receiving after the treatment of her daughter. And they instantly raised enough amount for their present. Elianna is currently at home, recovering and the video ahead shows her recovery.
Even though dry drowning occurs rarely but when it does it can claim lives, like it did in the case of Frankie. If they had known anything about it earlier they might have saved their little boy. But they did not want something similar to happen to any other kid so they shared their story and the alert and vigilant parent Lacey is, she read it and it actually came handy in saving the life of her daughter. If kids go through any illness that is rare parents should share their experiences as it ends up helping someone, somewhere as Lacey says in the video ahead.
Here is Lacey and a recovering Elianna telling their story together. One can see that Lacey was freaked out about the whole incident and how thankful she is to the Texas family to have shared their experience. It was they who made her want to share her daughter's ordeal too and hopefully it would help save many other lives.