93.3 KWTO Keeping Watch Over the Ozarks
A Cassville woman is dead after dry drowning at Table Rock Lake on Sunday.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol says Leah Moss, 50, was swimming in the lake and then said she started to feel sick. She was taken to a nearby fire station where she began to show the signs of dry drowning: coughing, chest pain, trouble breathing, extreme fatigue. She was pronounced dead soon after arrival.
While the term “dry drowning” is not medically recognized, the term has been applied to someone who dies because of water in the airways but not the lungs. The water causes spasms in the vocal cords, which then close and block breathing.