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During Memorial Day weekend, I was listening to public radio en route to my daily swim when I heard “A Child’s Reliquary,” a piano trio written by Richard Danielpour in memory of the 18-month-old son of the conductor Carl St. Clair. The child drowned in a pool in 1999 when his mother, who was in the pool with him, suffered a diabetic seizure.

A day later I learned that a 17-year-old boy had drowned after being caught in a riptide off the coast of New Jersey. Soon after, I heard of yet another drowning off the Jersey Shore, this time a man in his 20s.

While drownings, both fatal and nonfatal, have been declining for decades in the United States, they remain the second leading cause of injury-related deaths, after motor vehicle accidents, of children of all ages.

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In an overwhelming majority of cases, these tragedies are preventable if youngsters and their guardians have greater respect for the water and take well-established precautions.

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year from 2005 to 2009 an average of 3,880 people — more than 10 a day — died by drowning. An estimated 5,789 people were treated in emergency rooms each year for nonfatal drowning.

Children under 5 are the most frequent victims of drowning; even those who survive may be left with permanent brain damage. A small child can drown in just inches of water. In most cases, rescue must occur within five minutes to reduce the risk of death.

Drownings also are all too frequent among teenagers, especially boys, who are prone to taking risks. They are nearly four times as likely as teenage girls to die by drowning.

“When a teen says, ‘Let’s swim out to the buoy and back,’ he’s not thinking it’s a big risk and you can die,” said Elizabeth Bennett of Seattle Children’s Hospital, who with her colleague Dr. Linda Quan has been a leading advocate for swimming safety for more than two decades.

As Dr. David Szpilman and colleagues wrote in May in The New England Journal of Medicine, “Key risk factors for drowning are male sex, age of less than 14 years, alcohol use, low income, poor education, rural residency, aquatic exposure, risky behavior and lack of supervision.”

Dr. Szpilman, an expert on drowning prevention at Hospital Municipal Miguel Couto in Rio de Janeiro, urged all swimmers to know how to avoid rip currents, which, he wrote, “are involved in more than 85 percent of drowning events at the beach.”

If the statistics took into account the frequency of exposure to swimming compared with traffic, drowning events would be 200 times as common as deaths from traffic accidents, the authors wrote.

“Swimming is such a great lifetime activity, and water is so much fun in the summer. Water safety should be a bunch of dos, not just don’ts,” Ms. Bennett said in an interview.

While teenagers and adults are more likely to drown in rivers, lakes or oceans, small children most often drown in pools. Even if there is no local law mandating it, every pool should be surrounded by a high four-sided fence, with a childproof latch on the gate, that separates it from the house and yard.

The best protection against drowning for people of all ages is to know how to swim well and learn water-safety skills. Swimming lessons are widely available in schools, Y’s and other venues. “It’s never too late to learn,” Ms. Bennett said.

The safety guidelines she and Dr. Quan developed include these:

Always swim with other people.

Swim in areas protected by lifeguards.

Know the water and weather conditions before you get in the water.

Enter shallow and unknown water feet first.

Obey all safety signs and warning flags.

Know how and when to use a life jacket.

Even if small children know how to swim, a life jacket should be worn when they are playing near or in the water and at all times in a boat, Ms. Bennett said. Whether or not a lifeguard is present, she said, parents or guardians should maintain “touch supervision,” remaining close enough to grab a child who gets into trouble in the water.

“A lifeguard makes for a safer water experience, but you’re still the primary supervisor for children,” Ms. Bennett said. “Drowning can occur from a momentary lapse in supervision. Sometimes ‘everyone’ is watching but no one is watching.”

“There should be no other distractions — no conversations, talking on cellphones, putting sunscreen on another child — and no alcohol use for the supervisor, not just a swimmer,” she added.

The Safe Kids campaign has created a “Water Watcher” tag to be worn by whoever is supervising youngsters in water; adults can take turns wearing it to let others know they should not be distracted from their task.

It is also important that the supervisor swim well and be trained in basic lifesaving and resuscitation techniques. Unlike the current method of CPR — only chest compressions for heart attack victims — a drowning victim needs immediate ventilation.

Five quick breaths (which can be given while the victim is still in the water) should be administered before starting cardiac massage on land. Two breaths and chest compressions should be alternated until professional help (called by a bystander) arrives. A working phone should be readily accessible.

Experts caution against using the Heimlich maneuver before starting CPR, which can cause regurgitation in a victim whose stomach is filled with water.

Parents of teenagers should emphasize the importance of swimming only at beaches with lifeguards and warn adolescents against being pressured to swim in places or for distances beyond their ability.

But as with supervisors, lifeguards must remain constantly vigilant. In 2010, Dr. Jerome H. Modell, an anesthesiologist at the University of Florida, reviewed 180 drownings that resulted in litigation. All occurred in pools, 97 of which had lifeguards, and all but three of the victims died.

In only 38 cases did a lifeguard discover the submerged body; in fact, in 123 cases no one noticed the victims were in trouble until they were missing and in cardiac arrest.

Some lifeguards in Dr. Modell’s study were fully clothed instead of being in bathing suits. Some were physically incapacitated, and some could not speak or understand English. Others feared they would endanger themselves by attempting a rescue, and still others thought the victim was faking distress or “playing around” underwater.

Dr. Modell also cautioned against attempts to prolong underwater breath-holding by deliberately hyperventilating beforehand. This can result in “shallow water blackout,” as happened at my local Y to an accomplished swimmer, fortunately rescued by an alert lifeguard.

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