Saquan Meekins, 22, of Palm Coast, Fla., is charged with homicide by child abuse, The Post and Courier of Charleston reported. He has a bond hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon. He did not have an attorney as of Thursday morning, according to Berkeley County Jail records.

Jon Jon Jackson died in June after his family took him swimming. Officials said he inhaled too much water and drowned from fluid in his lungs as he slept more than an hour, known as secondary drowning.

Prosecutors wouldn’t detail what led to the charge against Meekins, but said the charge requires an extreme indifference to a child’s life.

Meekins turned himself in Wednesday. His mother, Christine Meekins, said investigators told him the charge was based on witness reports from the pool and a doctor who said the boy died in the pool.

The boy’s mother said he had autism. While he was excited to go to the pool, Cassandra Jackson said getting in the water made her son nervous. He reacted wildly and swallowed a lot of water, standing up and screaming, “I don’t want to die.” She worries that comment led to the charge.

“I’ve never blamed him. Even in my darkest hour, I’ve never even thought that he was responsible,” Jackson said.

In fact I was only in the emergency the other week with the suspicion of an atypical heart attack presentation which they initially took quite seriously (enough to scare the pants of me) but when the Dr asked about other medical problems and I mentioned trapped nerves he said “out of here”

That is the problem you never know, and if you err on the side of caution you get a reputation as a hypochondriac

L-Rex,
You’re right about this being a relatively rare event, but I think the point of the story is that there was some missed signs or that the signs displayed atypically. So we shouldn’t necessarily panic, but it does throw up a red flag to be alert, esp. if someone does not have the skills to alert someone explicitly that s/he doesn’t feel right–that’s it more than a little something down the wrong pipe.

I think the reaction is not an automatic and inevitable consequence of inhaling foreign substances as many of us would not be here now if it were, having swallowed things “the wrong way”

I am guessing that this only occurs if the unfortunate victim has been unable to expel the liquid through the usual reflexes and that like many other extreme medical reactions is chance, if you are unlucky and susceptible.

Also in most cases there would be signs of respiratory distress apparant.

My mums death certificate gave cause of death as the result of COPD, she died from pneumonia on top of her Asthma. Effectively what happens there is that you drown in your own effusions, but to watch someone undergoing that, you can see that something is very wrong.

It all makes me consider just how reckless that teacher was so many years ago who forced my head under the water, when I refused to hold it under the water when learning to swim, never mind the consequences it had of giving me a lifelong fear of the water that I only overcame enough to learn to swim this year.

fluffy loves the water and is an excellent swimmer but i’m like you, kristina, never far, always watchful, right there in the water with him. the days of reading a magazine while my son swims on his own are far far off.