1 dead, several children in serious condition after spate of drowning incidents
In series of water injuries over the day, French tourist dies in Netanya, 5-year-old in critical condition after being pulled from stream in north
One person died and eight others suffered serious injuries in a series of at least five separate drowning and near-drowning incidents in Israel on Tuesday.
Four children were injured within the space of little more than an hour, including a 5-year-old boy who suffered critical injuries.
Earlier Tuesday, a 60-year-old man drowned at the Sironit Beach in Netanya. The man, reportedly a French tourist, was pulled from the water in critical condition and paramedics declared him dead after being unable to resuscitate him.
Just before 7:30 p.m., Magen David Adom paramedics responded to an incident where a girl, 14, and her younger brother and sister were injured on the Delila Beach in Ashkelon.
The teen and one of her siblings were in serious condition, and the third sibling was in light condition. They were taken to Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center.
The three siblings are all residents of the southern Bedouin city of Ramat and were swimming in the evening after lifeguards at the beach had ended their shift for the day, the Ynet news site reported.
Barely 15 minutes later, MDA received a call about the 5-year-old boy who nearly drowned at the Kibbutzim Stream near Beit She’an in the north. Medics said they found the boy lying on the banks of the stream with no vital signs. The first responders worked to resuscitate the boy and rushed him to HaEmek Medical Center where he was being treated in a critical condition.
An hour later, medics in Tel Aviv were called to attend to an 18-year-old girl who was pulled unconscious from a swimming pool. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Later in the evening, MDA said medics were trying to resuscitate a man in his 50s and a teenage girl, 18, who were pulled from the water at an unauthorized beach at Palmachim, in the central region of the country.
Another injury was recorded in the Drom HaSharon Regional Council in the central region where a woman, 33, hurt her head jumping into a swimming pool and passed out in the water, Ynet reported. A 21-year-old man was also in moderate condition after being pulled from the water at an unrecognized beach in Haifa.
Also, on the Sidna Ali Beach in Herzliya, a teenage boy, 17, was moderately injured after he fell 15 meters from a cliff, the Ynet report said.
According to Tuesday figures from MDA, 16 people have drowned on Israel’s beaches since the start of the bathing season on April 16.
In addition, four people were left in critical condition and eight in serious condition in near-drowning incidents. A further 19 people were moderately injured and 74 lightly injured.
