SARASOTA, Fla. — As warmer weather is starting to creep in, more children will be hitting the pools, and parents may have forgotten about the condition called secondary drowning, or dry drowning.
One mom is thankful that she caught a news report last year that recently saved her daughter’s life.
Elianna was swimming at her grandparents’ home in Sarasota, Florida, earlier this month.
The whole family was in the pool having fun.
"We were all just playing, taking the [swim] noodle and blowing water in each other's faces, and then she just happened to put her mouth on it the same time someone else put their mouth on the other end, and it all went down," Lacey Grace, Elianna's mother, told WTSP.
Grace said that Elianna threw up the water and she thought all was OK.
But two days later, Elianna came down with a fever, and two days after that Grace took her daughter to her doctor then to urgent care, WTSP reported.
It’s a good thing she did.
"[We] went from there to the urgent care, which was about five minutes and in that five minutes, her skin turned purple. Her heart rate was through the roof. Her oxygen level was dropping. The doctor came right in and just said, 'I don't know where the nearest ER is' because he's new to the area, but he said, 'You have to get to it right away,'" Grace told WTSP.
Grace had a feeling that her daughter was experiencing dry drowning. She had read an article about a boy in Texas, named Frankie, who died of secondary, or dry, drowning.
It happens when you inhale water and it gets into the lungs.
Elianna is on antibiotics and recovering from aspiration pneumonia. Grace also posted to Facebook to remind parents of the symptoms. Grace calls Frankie her angel, WTSP reported.