New details on what happened to Grayson baby who nearly drowned, and future concerns
The approximately 1-year-old girl who nearly drowned in a Grayson home on Monday afternoon had toppled into a large pot of stew that was taken from a refrigerator and put on the floor, an official with Patterson District Ambulance said.
The family estimated it probably was just a couple of minutes before the little girl was found, unresponsive, said Paul Willette, the district’s director of ambulance operations. “When we got to the child, she did have a pulse. We started from there,” he said. It took a “pretty short” amount of time to prepare the child for transport and drive a few blocks to where a helicopter could be landed, Willette said.
The child was flown to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where on Tuesday she was reported to be in critical condition but recovering. There was no immediate update available Wednesday.
Toddlers the child’s age still have heads that are big and heavy in proportion to their bodies, Willette said, but such drownings and near drownings are more common in 5-gallon buckets, which is why they typically have warnings on them. What the toddler fell into was a “good-size, restaurant-size container,” he said.
An ambulance crew got the little girl to the point she was breathing on her own, Willette said. Clearing her airway and getting her resuscitated “was not as difficult to manage as we expected,” he said. A patient can have a small amount of matter in his or her lungs and still be able to breathe, he said.
But aspiration of any matter is a big concern, he said. Water typically is a lesser concern than other foreign substances, though, and of the food the child aspirated, Willette said, “I do think that’s going to be a concern as she continues to heal.”
The incident was called in about 3:30 p.m. Monday from a home on the 8700 block of Smith Street in Grayson.
We will have more information as it’s available.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 11:45 AM.
