The parents of 15-year-old Carmen Johnson, who tragically died from electric shock drowning while swimming near her family’s Alabama lake house last April, are speaking out about the rarely reported phenomenon after it took the lives of two more local women this past weekend. The two women, Shelly Darling and Elizabeth Whipple, were found dead in the lake early Saturday morning after they were reported missing by family members. Preliminary autopsies for the two victims show the cause of death as electrocution, according to Today.
Electric shock drowning occurs when electricity from a dock, pool, boat, or marina leaks into the water while people are entering the water. The electricity shocks them, paralyzing their muscles making it nearly impossible to swim, leading to drowning. The electricity also makes it difficult for people to rescue someone without suffering a shock, as well. After this happened to two more people, Carmen's parents decided to speak out.
“I’ve been around water all my life and I never thought that electricity in a huge body of water like that could do what it did,” Carmen’s father, Jimmy Johnson, 49, told CBS News. “It is something that even people like me now after all these years never had any idea that this even happened.” Every day, about 10 people in the U.S. die from accidental drowning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But electric shock drownings are difficult to track. It’s known as a “silent killer.”
Parents should teach kids the important of safety while in or near the water as swim season approaches!