Tragic swimming accident

When a child dies, the soul needs help

Drowning is the most common cause of death for children under the age of five. In the current case, the little girl was resuscitated but has now died in Linz University Hospital.

(Bild: Scharinger Daniel)

A 20-month-old girl died despite wearing a life jacket after falling into a pool in the Innviertel region. How do relatives deal with such a fate, is it even possible to come to terms with such a tragedy? The "Krone" spoke to crisis experts who know all about it.

Grief in the Innviertel town of St. Aegidi: a week after a 20-month-old girl was found motionless in an inflatable pool by her father, she died at the Kepler University Hospital in Linz.

Although the little girl had been wearing a life jacket and was splashing around with her five-year-old brother, the accident could not be prevented. The father, who was sitting just a few meters away and immediately rushed to the scene, was able to resuscitate his daughter together with the emergency doctor, but in the end the doctors lost the battle for the life of the one-and-a-half-year-old.

What happens after such a tragedy
"We are alerted in such acute crises - often when a family member has died in a traumatic way," explains Ursula Kettenhuber, Head of the Upper Austrian Red Cross Crisis Intervention Team. "We then provide calm, stability, safety and information." The focus is on the needs of those affected, tightening the social safety net of friends and relatives and clarifying organizational issues.

Unfortunately, drowning accidents involving children are not as rare as one would wish. Legally, such cases are often resolved quickly, but a feeling of guilt often remains.

Katja Sieper, Leiterin Krisenhilfe Oberösterreich

Operations involving children are particularly difficult
"However, our interventions only last around three and a half hours, i.e. in the very acute phase," explains Kettenhuber. "After that, we hand them over to crisis support, psychologists or relatives and friends, for example." Although all cases are serious, "operations involving children are always particularly difficult for us". 

Last year, the first responders for the soul had 1036 interventions, quite a few of which also involved crisis support.

Children's rooms and feelings of guilt
"When children are involved, we are usually alerted straight away," says Katja Sieper, Head of Crisis Aid Upper Austria. "We offer those affected ten hours of free support at home." The psychosocial specialists provide support in processing what has happened, such as how to deal with a now silent nursery or feelings of guilt.

"We can't undo anything, but we help people who have lost someone to be able to move on and remember the deceased in a good way," says Sieper, describing her role.