A 7-year-old girl, vacationing in Sedona, was taken to a Flagstaff hospital after she nearly drowned at an Uptown resort.

On Monday, July 20, the victim was swimming with her uncle and other children at the Sedona resort around 9 a.m., when her uncle turned his back. When he turned back around, she was floating, face down in the water, he told dispatch.

According to Sedona Fire District Capt. Jeff Wassell, the call came into dispatch at 9:14 a.m. and crews from SFD Station No. 4 arrived on scene at 9:18 a.m.

By the time crews arrived, the girl had gained consciousness and was wrapped in a towel crying.

“She was crying away which is what we like to see when we pull up on scene,” Wassell said. “Kids crying is a good thing.”

According to Wassell, the girl’s uncle was about to begin CPR when she began coughing up nearly one-quarter cup of water.

SFD transported her to Flagstaff Medical Center’s pediatric intensive care unit to check her lungs for water.

“If she swallowed large amounts of water, she could get pneumonia quick,” Wassell said.

He suggests that anyone who is found unconscious in the water be checked immediately for secondary infection even if they seem OK.

“If they are unconscious at any time, when the body relaxes and takes a breath in, that’s when pool water goes into the lungs,” he said.

SFD doesn’t have a high call volume for drowning because it doesn’t have the volume of backyard pools that Phoenix does. Instead, most people use the resort pools, Wassell said.

In the last week, SFD Public Information Officer Gary Johnson has read of three children drowning in the Phoenix area, he said.

“Even though drowning is not an issue in our area in the same magnitude as the Phoenix area, it still poses the same risk,” Johnson said. “In just about every case, the person responsible for supervising looked away or lost track for just a few seconds.”

Alison Ecklund can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 125, or e-mail aecklund@larsonnewspapers.com