Safety in the water: from risky dives to illness, the drowning alarm in summer

From reckless diving to falling ill in the water. Safety between the sea and the swimming pool, but also the lake and the river, does not go on holiday. Also because the news of the last few days dusts off a problem that arises every summer.

This is the case of the young Cagliari footballer Yael Trepy, who risked drowning in a swimming pool on the Costa Smeralda on Sunday afternoon. According to an initial reconstruction, Trepy felt ill while bathing in the pool. Pulled out of the water, he was immediately rescued and transported by helicopter to Sassari and hospitalized in intensive care. Also on Sunday, in the waters in front of the Su Giudeu beach in Chia, a young 17-year-old tourist was hit by a small boat with about ten migrants near a buoy. The young woman was hospitalized in Cagliari.

The numbers are important: every year there is an average of 300 drownings. In the period from 2024 to 2025, the ISS registered over 600 of them, with a prevalence of males, and almost equally divided between the sea, especially on free beaches, and inland waters. The data emerges from the annual report of the Observatory for the development of a national strategy for the prevention of drownings and accidents in bathing water.

Most drownings occur at sea and inland waters which together account for 93% of cases. A smaller but important number if we consider that it mainly involves children and adolescents occurs in swimming pools.

Sickness in the water is the main cause