Background Drowning is flagged as a leading silent killer among the children in Bangladesh. The Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh introduced SwimSafe program aimed at increasing awareness, enhancing swimming abilities and rescuing the drowning victims.

Description of the case: URMI, an eight years old cheerful girl living with her parents and two siblings in a sub-district. URMI, was very fond of playing with water since childhood. Parents informed that they struggled to restrict her accessing to water. ‘Thus, we send URMI to a school’ described by URMI’s parents for the reason of learning swimming under ‘swim-safe’ program. URMI was enrolled in August 2016 and. Instructors reportedly informed that URMI was an expert swimmer. On the November 21, 2016 URMI was playing with her younger brother along with three years old maternal cousin who came to visit them couple of days ago from Dhaka. Her cousin could not swim. Whilst playing near the ponds adjacent to their household, URMI went to her mother for doing some households chores. URMI returned to them within 5 min, however didn’t find her cousin anywhere. After a while, she saw him in the pond. Then URMI quickly moved towards the saw-mill close to the pond and brought back with a fire-wood stick. Meanwhile her cousin moved to middle of the ponds. URMI reminisced her rescue training from swim-safe program and she was continuously yelling loudly and asking for help. URMI tied her leg with a tree and let the fire-wood stick through to her cousin and shouted him to pull the stick. Thus, URMI saved her cousin’s life.

Lesson learned Since drowning is an epidemic in Bangladesh, intervention like ‘swim-safe’ is crucial for saving lives from drowning. Standardized rescue educations and Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation is essential for all at all ages in Bangladesh.