Kid Drownings

Dan Donohue, a veteran firefighter on Engine 725, is clearly sick of drowning calls. "It's all about responsibility. You have to be humble and say, Yes, it can happen to me.'" Though he says that supervision is the number one thing to work on, he also echoes the need for additional barriers. "Barriers give the parents time when the supervision lapses. Without barriers, forget it. Your kid is dead."

Jeff Olson usually works neighboring Station 26, but is subbing in tonight at Station 25. He grew up in the Maryvale neighborhood, and even bought his parents' house years later. He blames the problem on many issues surrounding economics. "When people moved out here in the '60s, this was the nice place to live -- this was the best. Everyone had decent money, and they put in pools. That's why there are so many out here." But, according to Olson, when newer, nicer neighborhoods got built up around Maryvale, the homes fell into disrepair and the property values went down.

"Now you have people who could never before afford a home with a pool getting into these houses and they don't know how dangerous it is," says Olson.

Other low-income areas in the Valley never had the stock of pools that were part of Maryvale's original middle-class status.

The pools built in that era were almost never equipped with pool fences. If they were, when the neighborhood slid, so did the condition of the fence. Over the next 20 years, the pools in Maryvale were largely ignored as single-family homes gave way to rentals and multi-family living arrangements.

People often tell Donohue that drowning-prevention efforts are too graphic. But he says, "If people want to see graphic, they can come down here and I will show them what I have to do to these kids."

"Here, let me show you," he says, as he goes into another room, returning with a box of medical equipment, and assembling the pieces. He puts a long tube into a syringe about four inches in circumference and says, "This gets stuck down your baby's throat and into its stomach." Then, a small metal piece gets forced into the mouth of the child, to open an airway. "I stick this down their throat and pull out this," he says, and he demonstrates how he gets the trachea clear.

He holds up the tube with the syringe. "We suck the water out with the syringe." He holds up the syringe and pantomimes jamming the tube down an infant's esophagus, and draws imaginary water out of the tube with the enormous syringe. His eyes focus on a baby that isn't even on the Formica table. He is looking at a memory of every child he has done this to, mostly to no avail. He runs his hand through his thick, reddish-brown hair, pausing for a minute before continuing to work on his "patient."

He pulls out a bright blue plastic case that holds a wide-bore needle the thickness of a pencil lead. "This gets stuck into your baby's bone. And we pour drugs in through that." All of these steps are to get a heartbeat and start the child breathing again. But it is not always good news when those things happen. He stops, and says, "Now think about the neurological state your baby's got to be in to accept all of this. They're dead. They're just looking for the light."

According to Donohue, in most cases, by the time they get to these steps, it is too late. "You can usually pump enough drugs into these kids to get their heart started. And then you're the hero -- everyone loves you."

But things sometimes change when the parent has to deal with the real-life ramifications of their now-brain-damaged baby. "The next week, they hate you, because look at what you saved."

A member of the Station 25 crew brings out a navy blue canvas gym bag. It reads: "Pediatrics." Inside are several color-coded nylon zipper bags.

Donohue pulls out the yellow bag, on which is written "2-3 year olds" in black marker. He picks it up gingerly, as if it is painful to hold. "This is the one you don't want to get. This is the drowning bag." He opens the bag and shows the contents: pre-measured drug dosages, tiny intubation tubes, and other items that should never be that small.

The sheer volume of drowning calls is taking its toll on the C Shift. The friendly, helpful firefighters turn into a frustrated, angry lot the longer they talk about this subject.

"We need to get pissed on TV when they ask us about it. Everyone thinks that since we're firemen, we should be nice all of the time, but we've got to start saying, Hey, watch your kids or they're going to die,'" says Leon.