RIP, Malcolm-Jamal Warner: Drowning as the Summer Menace

Oceans are dangerous for adults; Pools dangerous for toddlers

Jul 25, 2025

23 July 2025, ABC 6: Malcolm-Jamal Warner was swimming with 8-year-old daughter, who was rescued, when he drowned

Malcolm-Jamal Warner was swimming with his 8-year-old daughter on Sunday off the coast of Costa Rica when he drowned, police tell ABC News.
Surfers spotted the actor, best known for his role as Theo Huxtable in the hit TV sitcom "The Cosby Show," and his daughter struggling and dove in to help.
A surfer used his board to bring Warner's daughter to safety and a volunteer lifeguard pulled Warner and another surfer to shore, where Warner was given 45 minutes of CPR, according to police.
Police told ABC News on Tuesday that an autopsy on Warner has been completed. The Forensic Pathology Department said that the autopsy confirmed Warner's cause of death, which was described as asphyxiation by submersion, and was accidental.

Some additional media coverage of his death at age 54, having been caught up in a rip current in the ocean:

21 July 2025, People: Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Who Played Son Theo on The Cosby Show, Dies at 54 After Drowning on Family Trip
23 July 2025, NY Post: Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s shocking death raises new swimming safety fears — here’s how experts say to avoid drowning in a rip current
22 July 2025, NY Times: Malcolm-Jamal Warner Drowned in Area Known for Rip Currents

Pools recalled as toddler deaths result

That’s not the only recent drowning death-related news.

21 July 2025, Daily Voice: 9 Toddlers Drown, Sparking Recall Of 5 Million Backyard Pools

Millions of backyard pools sold nationwide are being recalled after nine toddlers drowned in them, officials said.
The recall affects 48-inch and taller above-ground pools made by Bestway, Intex, and Polygroup, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced on Monday, July 21. About five million of the pools have been sold in the US since 2002, including some currently available online and in stores.
The danger comes from an external compression strap that runs outside the pool and over the vertical support poles. Kids can put their feet on the strap to climb into the pool, even if the ladder has been removed.
At least nine children between 22 months and 3 years old drowned after getting in the pool using the strap, according to the CPSC. The drownings happened between 2007 and 2022 in California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Here is a picture of the behavior they’re talking about:

The CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) is the government department involved in these product recalls, and they have some of the craziest tweets on X.

It is quite the account to follow: https://x.com/USCPSC

Sample post:

That said, most of their posts are pretty mundane.

Here are their posts on the pool recall:

Just a partial snap of that last one.

Now, you can go to the original post and see a few people claim that perhaps the pool owners had assembled their pools incorrectly, etc.

The main point here was that there was a feature on these pools that made it easy for toddlers to climb into the pools… and if you’re a long-time reader of STUMP, you know that drowning in pools is a top accidental cause of death for 1-4 year-olds in the U.S.

Drowning Deaths: Different Types by Age

Here are the different types of drowning deaths (not including the ones that involve accidents to water craft, before one is thrown into the water, and THEN you drown. Those are different codes):

Drowning and submersion while in bath-tub (W65)
Drowning and submersion following fall into bath-tub (W66)
Drowning and submersion while in swimming-pool (W67)
Drowning and submersion following fall into swimming-pool (W68)
Drowning and submersion while in natural water (W69)
Drowning and submersion following fall into natural water (W70)
Other specified drowning and submersion (W73)
Unspecified drowning and submersion (W74)

Don’t ask me why “swimming-pool” and “bath-tub” are hyphenated in their descriptions. They just are in the database.

The above are all for accidental drownings. I have excluded suicide by drowning (X71), homicide by drowning (X92), and undetermined intent (Y21).

You may be wondering what W71 and W72 are. They’re not legit codes. That’s all.

But given the two items above, I thought I’d look at the split out of types of drowning deaths by age, broadly over the 1999-2024 period.

You can see that for those aged 1-4 years old, over half of the drowning deaths are swimming pool-related.

Those who are teens/early adults have the highest percentage of their drowning deaths related to natural water.

Bathtubs have a high percentage for infants, and then growing percentage with increasing age for seniors.

This is what the actual count looks like for 1999-2024:

But we cannot simply look at the raw numbers — these groups are not all the same sizes, to be sure. There is a reason the “ten year age groups” aren’t 10 years for infants and 1-4 years. There are some special results within those groupings, and drowning among infants and toddlers are those things.

The rates are key:

Toddler drowning rates are very high. So yeah, there is a reason the CPSC focuses on that. It’s not because of those particular above-ground pools. It’s because of pools in general.

Far more than 9 toddlers died drowning in pools over the period they covered.