KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Already this summer, we have had several drownings in the Kansas City area and just outside of our viewing area.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the leading cause of death for kids ages 1 to 4, and the second leading cause of death in children ages 5 to 14.
It's something that can happen in an instant, as a Kansas City, Kansas, family discovered last month.
It's a reality first responders are trained to respond to, relying on what they refer to as "the survival chain," from bystander CPR, to dispatch, to police and fire, and finally Hospital staff.
As you're about to read in their own words, it takes every part of that chain to give a patient a fighting chance of survival.
Caitlin Knute, Reporter: “Have you taken a drowning call before?”
Olivia Jones, KCK Dispatch: “I have. In six years I can maybe count less than five that I’ve taken. It’s not often at all, but they tend to be the biggest impressions.”
3:29 p.m., May 4, Kansas City, Kansas, dispatcher Olivia Jones
Dispatch: "I do have my fire and the ambulance on the way. Are you with the baby now?"
Caller: "No, they’re all in the back, I’m in the front."
Dispatch: "Okay, how old is the baby?"
Caller: "3 or 4."
Dispatch: "Male or female?"
Caller: "Male."
Dispatch: "And I just want to confirm, do you believe the baby is awake?"
Caller: "They don’t know... no. (Unintelligible.)"
Dispatch: "Do you believe the baby is breathing?"
Caller: "I don’t think so."
KCK police respond, Officers JiRee Police and Edward Jimenez-Vazquez
Kansas City, Kansas, Police Ofc. JiRee Police: “We were on the highway and received a call of a kid drowning. I’ve been to one of these calls before, so I started picturing what was going to happen and what to do when I got on scene. Once we arrived, of course, people were panicking. There was a pool in the backyard that’s where people were coming from, so I ran back there and then I saw a kid by the pool. I saw family trying to render CPR for the kid, I went over there and kind of asked them to get out of the way so I could start taking over and doing compressions to try to get the kid breathing again.”
KCKPD Officer Edward Jimenez-Vazquez: “It was very chaotic, there were people, crying, yelling, and people were all over the place. Emotions were high.”
Knute: “How long did they estimate that he’d been in the water?”
Officer Police: “We were told between five and 10 minutes, but after watching video, it was about 8 to 9 minutes.”
Knute: “So, you were doing CPR till firefighters arrived?”
Officer Police: “Yes.”
KCK Firefighter Paramedics Take Over, Jeffrey Vielhauer, Alicia Zimora, and Greg Stevenson
Captain Jeffrey Vielhauer: “Right when we pull up, the cops pulled up behind us. So, as I’m running out of the rig, they’re already to the pool and they started CPR, and these guys brought all the equipment up and then we took over CPR from the cops.”
Knute: “Is it hard as a paramedic, as a firefighter, responding to calls with kids, especially?”
Vielhauer: “Absolutely, there’s definitely that extra factor that goes into that whenever you know that it’s someone’s child and you know how that parent feels. You can kind of relate in that situation.”
Firefighter paramedic Greg Stevenson: “I mean, he started breathing, I think right before we started leaving. So it was, it felt more like likely that we were going to see a positive kind of outcome.”
Knute: “What was it like when you saw him take some breaths?”
Stevenson: “That this might actually turn out all right, which is not always the case.”
Knute: “In your line of work do you have to potentially prepare for the worst?”
Stevenson: “Yes.”
Vielhauer: “I said to them, ‘Let’s get this kid in the ambulance and going, because you know, the sooner we can get him to a more advanced care, the better.’”
The little boy was taken to the University of Kansas Health System, where firefighters lingered in the corner, waiting for a sign the boy would be okay.
Although they were not involved in this case, a University Health emergency room doctor explained what that care might look like.
What care looks like once a patient makes it to the hospital
Adam Algren, MD, U Health: "We focus on the airway the breathing circulation, so we wanna make sure that we establish an airway and make sure that the patient is getting oxygen support their blood pressure and try to take care of any injuries to other organs."
Despite being underwater for eight to nine minutes, the boy survived, and is expected to make a full recovery with no neurological deficits.
Knute: “In general, how could a child survive seven or eight minutes underwater how is that possible?"
Algren: “Yeah, it's pretty amazing, but children are very resilient and sometimes they are able to recover from prolonged periods with lack of oxygen."
Dispatcher Jones: “I was shocked because a lot of of these calls don’t go that well. So for this to have ended the way it did, and it helped a lot that there was somebody there that new CPR for juveniles and was able to get that help started while the firefighters were en route to the scene.”
Officer Police: “As long as you get blood circulating, we can take over from there and save a life.”
Firefighter-Paramedic Alicia Zimora: “To know that he was gonna be okay, it was a really rewarding sensation.”
Vielhauer: “It’s an amazing feeling when you get that email from them saying you know kids gonna be great, and fine, and back to normal. “
Out of respect for his family's privacy, we are not using his name or picture.
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