How much water does it take to drown?

It doesn’t take much. Less than a cup of water will do the trick.

if you stick your nose and mouth in a Dixie cup full of water and you don’t struggle , yes, you shall drown. Kids drown all the time in just a couple inches of water.

yes, it is very dangerous because of that to have ANY standing water around small children. I remember a Mom whose story was featured on Oprah, her toddler drowned in the bucket of water she was using to wash her car. I think she had turned away for a brief moment and because they’re so top heavy the child died. A lot of parenting manuals suggest the use of toilet seat locks, to prevent a similar incident in your bathroom.

Drowning is what happens when your lungs fill with water. For a child, yes, a Dixie cup could drown them. For an adult, more than likely, it would take a little more.

how do you resusitate someone who inhaled a lung full of water? Is it really like the movies where they cough up the water and are fine?

No, luninous00, it’s not like the movies. Resuscitation now involves the use of CPR and, if available, and AED. But inhaling a “lung full of water” has its own complications. These depend upon whether it is fresh or salt water that is inhaled. In fresh water, the water does not stay in the lungs, but is absorbed into the blood stream due to the salt content of the blood. There, it can cause complications hours later, including the swelling of the red blood cells (RBCs), and their subsequent bursting. This obviously can be life-threatening, even if the person has been resuscitated. For salt water near drowning, there is salt water in the lungs, and it has infectious materials in it. So a lung infection is a real possibility. All near-drowning people need to go to the hospital for at least some observation.

John