Grieving mother warns of dangerous pool game

SASKATOON Nolan Royer, by all accounts, was an active and happy teen.

Because he was so strong and healthy, his mother Jodie Lonsberry is left asking why he died this past weekend. She is warning other parents about shallow water blackout, which can happen when people hold their breath for too long under water.

“If one parent could be there to see, or to watch or to warn, and the game can be not played, and one other family never has to go through this, that’s all that matters,” she said through tears on Thursday.

Nearly two weeks shy of his 18th birthday, Royer was at the Sheraton Cavalier Saskatoon Hotel’s pool with his two younger siblings on Nov. 10. Lonsberry said her son was playing a game of who could hold their breath the longest.

Lonsberry and her partner were upstairs when her daughter ran up to get her and said Nolan wasn’t breathing.

“When I got there, he was already at the side of the pool.”

Saskatoon police were called to the hotel, but after speaking with witnesses at the scene, officers deemed the incident was not suspicious, according to a police news release issued on Saturday.

Lonsberry hadn’t been aware of shallow water blackout, which is suspected in Royer’s death. It can happen to athletes who are training, as well. She is asking parents to talk to their kids about the game.

“It’s not going to happen to everyone,” she said. Games to gauge how far people can swim under the water or hold their breath are very commonly played, she said.

In the breath-holding game, participants try to hold their breath longer than other players. Shelby Rushton, CEO of the Saskatchewan branch of the Lifesaving Society, said that when people hold their breath for an extended period of time, they hyperventilate to see if they can get more oxygen, but it doesn’t work.

“We reduce our carbon dioxide levels, which tells our body, ‘We don’t need to breathe,’ and then we go unconscious,” she said. “When we go unconscious, our body says, ‘I think we need a breath’ and it takes a breath, and unfortunately, by that time, we’re already under the water. So we inhale the water, and that’s when the drowning occurs.”

Rushton said it can happen in any depth of water.

Dale Grant, general manager of the Sheraton Cavalier Saskatoon Hotel, said in a statement that the hotel “will continue our policy of having our pool staffed with pool attendants when our waterslide is in operation, as was the case this past Friday.”

Royer’s funeral will be held in Saskatoon on Saturday.