LANSING — Drowning has been the number-one cause of death in children ages 1 to 4 and the second-leading cause of death for children between 5 and 14 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Since 2010, there have been more than 1,300 fatal drownings in the Great Lakes,” said Bob Pratt, the director of education and executive director of the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project. “A little over 1% of them were wearing life jackets.”

Recent drownings have occurred both on the Great Lakes and Michigan’s inland lakes and rivers. Among them:

∫ On Sept. 21, an unnamed 44-year-old man drowned at Versluis Park in Plainfield Township near Grand Rapids.

∫ The body of Brady Donnelly, 25, was discovered by the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team less than 35 minutes after he drowned on Sept. 15 in a pond in Tecumseh Park.

∫ Gavin Miller, 21, fell from a fishing boat that capsized on Sept. 23 in Lower Evans Lake in Martiny Township, east of Big Rapids.

∫ On Sept. 18, a body recovered from Lake Michigan near St. Joseph was identified as 69-year-old Douglas Greyerbiehl.

In Oakland County, this year as of late August there were 11 reported drownings. Last year, four drownings were reported.

Pratt said, “People think drowning is waving and yelling for a long time like on TV shows. Unfortunately, drowning happens very quickly, typically within less than a minute.”

According to Alex Manion, a meteorologist at the Detroit/Pontiac office of the National Weather Service, fall weather creates choppier conditions in the Great Lakes, which include creation of rip currents.

The combination of waves plus wind speed and direction “creates an imbalance of water that piles up,” Manion said. “Underneath, or below the surface, water will pull backwards,” which can pull people further away from the shore.

Swimming pool water is always “flat, warm and crystal clear,” Pratt said, and “people think they’re a good swimmer because they can swim in these conditions. But then they get out in water like Lake Michigan where the water can be rough and can have dangerous currents.”

According to Pratt, even strong swimmers can drown from exhaustion.

“Knowing what your true swimming ability is in swimming out in rough conditions is a different skill set than swimming in a backyard pool,” Pratt said.

Manion says a challenging aspect of rip currents is their formation of a narrow current that’s hard to see with the naked eye.