How can you tell when your child’s asthma becomes life threatening? A Rutgers University pediatric pulmonologist explains.

Each year in the US, more than 300 children and young adults under 24 and more than 3,000 adults die of asthma—attacks that are often preventable.

“The number is likely higher, however. A person might suffer a fatal asthma attack outside of a hospital, but if they were in cardiac arrest upon arrival at the emergency department, the official cause of death may not reflect the asthma-inciting event,” says Khalil Savary, a pediatric pulmonologist and assistant professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

Here, Savary, an advocate for asthma education, discusses how families can tell the signs of a life-threatening asthma attack and when to seek help: