A five-year-old girl drowned in a swimming pool in Migdal this afternoon. After fighting for her life for several hours in serious condition, doctors were forced to declare her death this evening.
MDA paramedics provided medical treatment at the scene and evacuated her to Poriya Hospital while performing CPR.
"The girl lay unconscious with no pulse or breathing near the pool, together with the mobile intensive care unit and other first-responders sent to the place. We carried out advanced resuscitation and she was evacuated in critical condition with continued medical treatment to the hospital," said MDA medical emergency medic Simon Tetro.
According to data from the B'terem for Children's Safety organization, so far in 2018 twenty-nine children have drowned (including the nine victims of the Nahal Tsafit disaster), while summer is still in full swing. By comparison, in the whole of 2017 fifteen children drowned.
B'terem for Children's Safety Director Orly Silvinger responded to the latest near-drowning incident and said, "Unfortunately also today we hear of another tragedy of a child drowning.
"It's important to understand that young children who aren't skilled at swimming must have close supervision of an adult who will be with them in the water within touching distance and with no distractions. A drowning child cannot cry for help. Within 2 minutes unconsciousness sets in and within 4-6 minutes irreversible brain damage occurs, until death," Silvinger said.
President Reuven Rivlin has taken personal interest because of the many cases of children drowning this summer, and issued an emotional call to parents to ensure children's safety near water sources. "The source of life can also be a place of disaster."
The President's call joins a broad campaign initiated by the National Program for Child Safety led by the Health Ministry to raise awareness and save lives.
In an exposé by Arutz Sheva's Chana Roberts it was revealed that pool lifeguards in Israel are poorly trained and that the "qualifications necessary for becoming a lifeguard are basically that you know how to swim fast.
"They don't teach you how to deal with distraction, they don't teach you how to deal with fatigue, or how to man zones. They don't each you how to be an effective lifeguard, or the different types of drowning you might see. They just teach you how to swim fast - how to catch someone and how to swim fast.
"Pool lifeguards here don't know how to save people. They don't know how to be an effective lifeguard, they don't know how to deal with people, and they don't know how to deal with parents. That's why when you talk to the lifeguards, they will turn their back on the pool. That's wrong."