Okay, for starters, I am not good at this "blogging" stuff. Even more so, I could not even begin to tell you how to "link" an article. So, please bear with me.

I came across this article tonight on AOL. It, I feel, is one that ALL of us need to be aware of. It effects OUR children. Beind a mom of a 7 year old boy, and the owner of a pool, it is something I was completely unaware of and I am one of those "hawk" moms. So please, if your life is effected in one way shape, form, or fashion, by a child and WATER of ANY KIND, take a moment and read this..

Like I said, "linking" is a stranger to me but I can copy and paste :)

Child's death mystifies mother

'It's really bizarre,' mom says of son's drowning

"Jon Jon"

GOOSE CREEK — Cassandra Jackson is still trying to understand how her 10-year-old son could have died more than an hour after swimming in the pool at his apartment complex Sunday afternoon.

But if one child can be saved because people learn from Johnny "Jon Jon" Jackson's death, her loss is more tolerable, she said.

Jon Jon, a fourth-grader at Westview Elementary School, inhaled a lot of water while swimming in the Branchwood apartments pool about noon Sunday, his mother said. He seemed fine afterward, but said he was sleepy, so he lay down in his bed about an hour later, she said.

A few minutes later, another adult checked on him and found white foam coming from his mouth.

"His lips were blue and his tongue was sticking out," his mother said. "We called 911."

He later died of asphyxiation by drowning at Trident Medical Center, Berkeley County Coroner Glenn Rhoad said. He said there was water in the boy's lungs.

Jon Jon was autistic and suffered from attention deficit and a social phobia, his mother said. But doctors told her that had nothing to do with his death.

Not all drowning deaths happen immediately. Other phenomena, such as secondary drowning, can occur as much as 72 hours later and without any warning signs, medical experts say.

"I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this," Jackson said. "It's really bizarre."

Tuesday night, she flipped through photos of her son, whom she described as a good boy and a huge wrestling fan. If he wasn't watching wrestling, he was playing a wrestling video game, she said.

His daily schedule is taped to his bedroom door. It helped the autistic boy to have a routine, she said.

"He was so loving," she said.

The family moved into the apartment about eight months ago, and Jon Jon had begged to go swimming for months, but it was too cold, Jackson said. On a sunny day over the weekend, they gathered up their swimming gear and headed for the pool. They couldn't have imagined a tragic end to their day, Jackson said.

Rhoad called the case unusual. He said adults in the group couldn't have known what was happening.

It isn't clear that any actions could have saved Jon Jon. But there are some preventive measures that parents should take for more common situations, experts say.

Never leave young children unsupervised around pools or swimming areas. All children should learn how to swim.

If a child starts acting strangely or has trouble breathing after leaving the water, early intervention by paramedics could be crucial to saving his or her life. Any adult trained in CPR can start potentially life-saving care before paramedics arrive.

Jackson, 40, said she hopes other parents will closely monitor their children after swimming, especially if a child has inhaled water.

"Please check them when they get out of the pool. Just watch them like a hawk," she said. "It tears me up inside. It's a heck of a sacrifice, but if this will help someone else, then it's all worth it."

In 2005 there were 3,582 accidental drowning deaths in the United States, about 10 every day, according to recent figures available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than a quarter of those victims were 14 or younger; drowning was the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for that age group, behind only motor vehicle accidents. Males were four times more likely than females to drown.

Reach Nadine Parks at 937-5573 or nparks@postandcourier.com. Reach Noah Haglund at 937-5550 or nhaglund@postandcourier.com.