Drownings: more than 500 deaths each summer, a new awareness campaign

“You care about them, don’t take your eyes off them” : in a new drowning awareness campaign, the Ministries of Health and Sports are launching a shock campaign, with the testimonies of parents who have lost a child. All ages combined, drownings represent more than 500 deaths each summer, 4 deaths per day on average. Children under 6 account for a quarter of these drownings.

Three videos testimonials, 2 minutes long, will air from June 19. They leave the floor to three mothers, whose children aged 1.5 to 2.5 years have escaped their vigilance, outside bathing time. Accidental drownings among children under 6 mainly take place in private family swimming pools.

1,000 deaths per year by accidental drowning

In France, accidental drownings are responsible for approximately 1,000 deaths each year, half of them during the summer period. It is the leading cause of death by accident in everyday life among people under 25 years of age. A drowning monitoring system will be deployed this summer by Public Health France with 4 points during the summer and a season report at the end of October.

Accidental drownings in adults aged 25 to 44 mainly take place in the natural environment (sea, river, body of water). To the circumstances during the drowning already identified in the previous age groups (exhaustion, fall, presence of currents and baths) is added the consumption of alcohol. From the age of 45, accidental drownings mainly take place at sea.