Memorial Day Beach Trips: NC Drowning Rates, Water Safety Tips

NORTH CAROLINA— Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, and beach season in North Carolina. The excitement for this time of year, however, is tempered by the risk for those visiting Lake Norman or any of the state's many beaches, as the grim reminder remains that people have lost their lives by drowning in North Carolina.

North Carolina saw one death per 100,000 people due to drowning in 2019, the most recent year in which data is available from WorldLifeExpectancy.com, a website that tracks the leading causes of deaths among Americans. The Tar Heel State ranks 27th out of the 40 states the drowning statistics track.

Indications from activists who track drowning statistics suggest 2020 was an even worse year for drownings in at least some of America’s largest lakes.

Dave Benjamin, executive director of the Great Lakes Surf & Rescue Project, said the 56 drownings reported on Lake Michigan in 2020 were the most in a decade.

“More school-age children are going to die from drowning each year than fires, tornadoes, active shooters, earthquakes, lightning combined,” Benjamin said, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization — while recalling how he narrowly escaped death in a near-drowning incident on Lake Michigan in 2010.

Drowning remains the fifth leading cause of unintentional death, according to the CDC.

Five tips for recognizing drowning, originally published in the Coast Guard’s On Scene magazine, were shared by Slate.com:

1. In all but rare circumstances, people are physiologically unable to call for help. The respiratory system is designed for breathing, and speech is a secondary function. “Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs,” the article said.

2. A drowning person’s mouth alternately sinks below the surface of the water and then reappears, but the mouth is never above the surface long enough to exhale, inhale and cry for help. A drowning person will exhale and inhale quickly before their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water again.

3. Drowning people can’t flag down help. “Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface,” the article said. “Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies, so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.”

4. When they’re drowning, people lose control of their arms. They’re struggling to stay afloat in the water, and “cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment,” the article said.

5. While they’re drowning, people will remain upright in the water, and there’s no evidence of a supporting kick.

Some signs to look for also include:

• The drowning person’s head is tilted back with the mouth open.
• Eyes appear glassy and empty, unable to focus, or may be closed.
• Hair may be over the forehead or eyes of the drowning person.
• The drowning person won’t be moving his or her legs.
• The drowning person may be hyperventilating or gasping.
• The person may be trying to swim in a particular direction, but isn’t making headway.
• The person may try to roll over their back.
• The person may appear to be climbing an invisible ladder.

Separate water safety tips from the American Red Cross include:

Always enter unknown water in the shallow end feet first; and look for waves, currents or underwater obstructions before going in.

To survive a rip current in particular, Benjamin has stressed the “float and follow” method.

When caught in a current, float to keep your head above water, calm down and avoid panic and conserve energy before following the current to see which way it is moving. Then, Benjamin said, swim perpendicular to the flow.

Children are generally the most at risk, as drowning is the second leading cause of “injury death” among kids age 1 to 14, the CDC said. Young children are especially at risk because they can slip quickly away from their parents and go into water without understanding how dangerous it is, according to Parent.com.

The highest drowning death rate among states is Hawaii, which has 3.0 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to the WorldLifeExpectancy.com data from 2019. Mississippi has the next highest drowning death rate at 2.1 per 100,000, with Montana (1.9), Louisiana (1.8) and Florida (1.7) rounding out the top five.

About 750 children drown each year, 375 of whom do so within 25 yards of a parent or adult. More startling, the CDC said, 10 percent of parents watch their children drown because they don’t know it’s happening.

Bacteria adds another risk to swimming in natural bodies of water, such as local lakes and beaches. Some strains of E. coli can cause disease, and while much of what is found on the beach is likely harmless, its presence could be an indication the water is contaminated, according to the Clean Lakes Alliance.

Higher-than-normal E. coli levels are commonly detected on the water’s edge after large rainstorms that wash dog or bird feces into the water, the alliance said.

The North Carolina Recreational Water Quality Program tests 213 swimming sites throughout the state on a weekly basis from April through September. Since April 14, the agency has issued four swimming advisories this season.

Swimming advisories issued in North Carolina may be found here.