First Child Drowning Death of 2010 has Texas Personal Injury Lawyers Concerned
Barely a couple of days into a brand new year and Texas child injury lawyers have already come across the first drowning death of the year. The tragedy occurred last Sunday, and involved a 4-year-old deaf child in Harris County. According to reports, the child’s mother called emergency services at about 9 in the morning when she realized the little girl was missing. The girl was found floating in the neighbor’s pool a while later. Attempts to revive her failed, and she died a few hours later at the North Cypress Hospital near Houston. As of now, Harris County Sheriff’s Office representatives have confirmed that they are not considering filing charges against anyone.
It is the first drowning death in Texas this year, and Texas personal injury lawyers will be concerned that this year too could see a continuation of our dismal child safety record from 2009. Last year, a staggering 112 children in Texas died in drowning accidents, including 32 children in the Houston area alone. Both were new records since Texas began keeping count of children’s drowning deaths in 2005. There were 66 deaths in 2005, 70 deaths in 2006 and 63 deaths in 2007.
Those numbers were alarming enough for the Department of Family and Protective Services to warn about an unchecked increase in drowning deaths involving children last year. In fact, in our state, drowning is the second largest cause of unintentional death in children, with kids between 1 and 4 years of age accounting for almost half of all drowning deaths.
As parents ourselves, we find the silence over our state’s record in child safety, alarming. There just isn’t enough uproar and anger over the fact that so many children seem to die every year in Texas in some of the most preventable ways imaginable.
There is nothing to beat parental supervision to prevent drowning accidents. Remember, it takes only a couple of seconds for a child to fall into a pool, or wade over to the deep end. As Houston personal injury attorneys, we are also concerned about the safety and security systems in place in pools in hotels, clubs, and recreational facilities. Property owners must make sure that there are designated lifeguards to watch over the pool. Even with the passing of the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, we know that many public pools in Texas have still not installed safer drain covers that can prevent little children from being entrapped and drowned.
If your child has been the victim of a drowning or any other type of injury, contact the the attorneys at The Kahn Law Firm for a free consultation at 713-226-9900 or toll free 1-877-226-9940.
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