Near-Drowning: To Be or Not to Be … Is It the Question?

[...]like in our patients, this was not always the case; patients regaining consciousness after near-drowning had subsequently died due to aspiration pneumonia, even though no apparent clinical signs could be found on the initial physical examination. [...]an international group with scientific expertise in the field of drowning research that was supported by the European Resuscitation Council and the American Heart Association encouraged the abandonment of the ‘near-drowning’ term that was considered to generate confusion [4]. Recently, StatPearls, which is a free academic e-learning management system that is intended for a broader medical readership even published an article that was dedicated to near-drowning, which was defined as nonfatal drowning, i.e., survival, at least temporarily, after suffocation by submersion in a liquid medium, including or not loss of consciousness [7]. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed] Bruno Mégarbane 1,*Orcid, Hossein Mehdaoui 2 and Dabor Résière 2Orcid 1 Department of Medical and Toxicological Critical Care, Lariboisière Hospital, Paris-Diderot University, 75010 Paris, France 2 Critical Care Unit, University Hospital of Martinique, 97200 Martinique, French West Indies * Correspondence: bruno.megarbane@lrb.aphp.fr Received: 29 March 2018 / Accepted: 3 April 2018 / Published: 15 April 2018