Father issues warning about mermaid tail swimsuits after five-year-old daughter almost drowns

A father has issued a safety warning about mermaid swimming outfits after his five-year-old daughter nearly drowned.

Adam Lisberg initially shared the warning on Twitter in July 2020, where he’d recounted the events that led to his daughter being hospitalised for two days.

According to Lisberg, the “scary story” revolved around his daughter Annabelle and her older sister Ruby, seven, both of whom “love mermaids”.

“This is a scary story starring my daughter Annabelle. I’m telling it as a warning about kids, pools and swimsuits because I don’t want anyone else’s kids to end up in the ER or the ICU, like she did for two days,” Lisberg began the Twitter thread, which included a photo of his daughter in a hospital bed.

In subsequent tweets, the father-of-three explained that he and his wife had ordered their daughters two-piece swimsuits with matching mermaid tails after getting an inflatable pool for the driveway.

Lisberg then shared a photo of the paddling pool in question, which featured water that reached only up to the childrens’ legs.

In the post, Lisberg noted that he and his wife “know to be careful” and “know kids can drown in anything” and to “watch them”.

“Still, things can happen,” he wrote.

According to Lisberg,the incident occurred while his daughters were playing in the pool while wearing their mermaid swimsuits and he was in the kitchen. “Sunday afternoon, the mermaids were in the pool. I was in the kitchen overlooking the pool, window open so I could hear them, looking at them every minute or two,” he wrote.

“Then Ruby came inside and told me calmly that Annabelle was underwater and wasn’t moving, so she pulled her out.”

Lisberg said that he looked outside to find his five-year-old daughter lying on the ground beside the pool with her arms inside her mermaid tail and “not moving”.

After rushing outside, Lisberg said he picked up his daughter, who “didn’t react,” despite her eyes being “wide open”.

In the emotional Twitter thread, the father then recalled hearing his daughter cough a little while questioning how long she’d been under the water and “what no oxygen to the brain looks like”.

According to Lisberg, he began to perform CPR that he’d learned when his daughter was born, at which point Annabelle began to cry and cough. “Water, mucus, then vomit. This is all good,” he wrote.

At this point, Lisberg revealed that he’d called 911, and that Annabelle had begun to cry but still wasn’t able to form words.

The father then explained what had happened, as told to him later by his daughters. “Ruby said Annabelle pulled that mermaid tail up to her shoulders and tucked her arms inside. And as Annabelle told us later, she tried to ‘play potato’ by lying down in the water. But she couldn’t reach her hands out to get up,” he wrote. “Annabelle said she tried to talk, but the words just turned into bubbles. I will never get that image out of my head.”

In the Twitter thread, Lisberg then credited his eldest daughter for saving Annabelle’s life, as the seven year old had seen that her younger sister “wasn’t coming up”, at which point she pulled the five-year-old’s head out of the water, before pulling her completely out of the pool.

“She guessed Annabelle was only under for about 30 seconds,” he wrote, before adding that paramedics arrived within five minutes and measured “good blood oxygen” levels as Annabelle began to recover.

However, despite spending just 30 seconds underwater, Lisberg said the five year old had to spend two days in the paediatric ICU.

“Even a little water in the lungs, especially if it has chlorine, can spark a delayed reaction as the body fights injury,” he wrote. “She had a temperature and elevated pulse and breathing for almost a day after. Needed oxygen to kick it.”

According to Lisberg, when Annabelle came home, she was the “same giggly bubbly silly sparkly girl she was,” with the father-of-three noting that his family is “indescribably lucky”.

“I cannot imagine what it’s like to be the parent who didn’t get lucky like this,” he wrote.

Lisberg concluded the Twitter thread thanking those who had read it before admitting that he hopes it “haunts” them.

“So, thank you for reading this. Frankly, I hope this haunts you. I share it because I want you to never take any kids’ safety for granted, especially in water, no matter how shallow, even for a minute,” he wrote. “And maybe skip the mermaid tail. She’ll be okay without it.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more children ages one to four die from drowning than any other cause of death in the United States, and for children ages five to 14, drowning is the second leading cause of “unintentional injury death” after car crashes.

Speaking toToday about the experience, Lisberg said that his daughters had owned similar swimsuits in the past, and that he and his wife had thought they would be safe because the pool was “two feet deep”.

“Even if they sit down they can get themselves up,” he explained. He also noted that he’d been aware, like “every parent,” that you have to watch children “like a hawk and you have to be careful all the time”, but that he’d thought it would be okay for him to watch from the kitchen as he supervised his five-year-old son’s attempt to make guacamole.

Lisberg also shared the fear he’d felt when he reached his daughter, with the father-of-three admitting that he’d “thought she was dead”.

As for the quick response of his daughter Ruby, Lisberg described his eldest daughter’s rescue as “incredible”.

“She got her sister completely out of the water. It was incredible,” he said, adding that the seven-year-old’s first instinct had been to protect her sister and “she did”.

In addition to avoiding swimsuits that may obstruct a child’s ability to move, a swim instructor recently warned parents against buying blue bathing suits for their children.

According to Nikki Scarnati, a certified ISR (infant swimming resource) instructor who goes by the username @springhill.isr on TikTok, blue bathing suits can make it difficult to see a child underwater.

The Independent has contacted Lisberg for comment.