Jonathan Eichenholz was 3 years old when he was diagnosed with autism. His parents nicknamed him “Houdini” because of his propensity to escape from home, school and even his car seat while in traffic.
One afternoon when he was 5, Jonathan, who was fascinated with water, slipped out of the family’s Orange County home and into a neighbor’s yard.
The neighbor spotted the boy floating face down in his pool, let out a “bone-chilling scream” and pulled Jonathan out, said Jason Eichenholz, the boy’s father.
Eichenholz raced over and found his son unconscious on the pool deck with ashen skin, blue lips and a distended belly. Eichenholz, a volunteer firefighter, was able to resuscitate him with CPR.
Children with autism are especially susceptible to the risk of drowning, as they tend both to wander away and to be attracted to water, experts say. That has led advocates to push for specialized swim lessons attuned to those kids’ situations, but much more needs to be done.
So far this year, 23 children with autism have died by drowning in Florida, including six in Central Florida, according to the Florida Department of Children and Families. Those deaths account for nearly 30% of the 81 such deaths reported in 2024 in Florida, which leads the nation in childhood drowning.
Every time he sees a news report about a child with autism drowning his “heart sinks,” Eichenholz said, adding those stories were the catalyst for a targeted donation he made to the YMCA of Central Florida, which in the last year helped give nearly 100 kids with autism free swim lessons.
“No one tells you when you get a diagnosis of autism that the leading cause of death for your child is drowning,” said Eichenholz, whose son, now 19, took swimming lessons soon after his close call.
The most recent state case was on Aug. 27, when a 2-year-old boy wandered away from his backyard in Putnam County. A short while later, he was found unresponsive in a canal near his home, according to the department’s fatality report.
One of the recent Central Florida cases involved a 3-year-old on vacation with his father in Orlando. He wandered out of his room at the Sheraton Vistana Resort and was later found dead in a pond on the property.
There also was a close call in early August when a 5-year-old boy with autism got out of his home and was rescued by a Volusia County sheriff’s deputy, who found the child clinging to a log in a nearby pond.
“I don’t think people have been talking about drownings involving children with autism at anywhere near the level that it needs to be,” said Jon Burstein, senior communications specialist at the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County.
Autism is a developmental disability that leads to delays, and problems, in language and social skills. The symptoms can be moderate or severe and may involve repetitive behaviors and sensitivity to taste, touch and noise. Children with autism are often drawn to water, intrigued by how it feels on their bodies, and are often “elopers,” prone to wandering.
Teaching children with autism to swim means assessing the child’s individual needs, often providing private lessons and giving the youngsters extra time to adjust.
“The goal for the first three or four lessons might just be that they’ve built a trust with the swim instructor, and they are comfortable with walking away from their parent,” said Jessica Chamberlain, regional aquatics director for the YMCA of Central Florida.
The YMCA combined Eichenholz’s donation — he declined to say how much he provided — with grant money from the YMCA of the USA to offer the free swim lessons.
That money has been used up, however, and there are still about 30 kids on the waitlist. The YMCA is now looking for additional funding to provide more lessons for free. Without a scholarship, it costs $225 for eight 30-minute private lessons.
The YMCA also has partnered with Nemours Children’s Hospital, which was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Universal Orlando Foundation to help launch an aquatics program for children with autism and other developmental delays. The hospital hopes to offer lessons to about 25 children a year.
That program, which kicked off in July, has been hosting its lessons at the Leonard and Marjorie Williams Family YMCA in Orlando.
Lucas Davies was 16 months old when he was diagnosed with autism. Not long after, his parents enrolled him in traditional swim classes at a YMCA in California, where they were living at the time. But six months later, the toddler still was reluctant to get in the pool and had no swimming skills.
When Lucas was 2, his parents, Chris and Renee Davies, moved to Orlando. Then they enrolled him in swim lessons with Geoff Dawson, who teaches at his Longwood home and has experience working with children with special needs.
Dawson had the Davies bring all three of their children to the first few lessons, so the siblings could get in the pool and make their brother feel more comfortable.
He also recommended that they break the lessons into 10-minute chunks spread out over four days, so being in the water became a normal part of Lucas’ daily routine.
At age 3, Lucas now can swim to the pool’s edge and float on his back for short periods of time.
“Before he started swimming with Geoff, if he fell in the water, there was no way he could get out on his own, or even float,” Renee Davies said. “I feel dramatically more comfortable now.”
Veronica Skyes, an Osceola County mother of two children with autism, is also the director of a nonprofit that coordinates care for youngsters with the disability. Every summer, she advises parents to take their children out of other therapy sessions to make room for swim lessons.
But many are reluctant. Families with a young child newly diagnosed with autism may feel their time and money is already monopolized by that child’s therapy and treatment appointments.
“A lot of families are desperate for the progress they want their child to make — ‘I need him to speak. I need his behavior to be controlled’ — that they’re not even thinking about the swim lesson component,” she said.
Jennifer Cicia, an autism disorders specialist at the University of Central Florida’s Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, said swimming lessons should be the last line of defense to prevent a “catastrophic event”.
Parents whose children have autism should install extra locks and alarms, get a tracking device for their child and learn CPR. If possible, they should put up a fence with a locked gate around their property, she added.
But none of those devices mean a young child won’t get out unnoticed, so learning to swim is crucial, she said.
Eichenholz said he put in extra locks on his home’s doors, but on the day his son nearly drowned, the family forgot to secure a secondary latch on the sliding glass door.
The parents of the 5-year-old boy who got out of his home in Volusia in August had alarms on their doors, the sheriff’s office said. Those alarms sounded — but the child still made it to the pond before he was found.
“I don’t know if we can ever do enough when we’re having kids drowning at the rate that we’re having,” Cicia said.
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