Over the years I've noticed a common practice among Nigerians, which is whenever they rescue a drowning person from the water they would immediately rush the person to the nearby hospital.

Here's an excerpt from a research article on the best way to rescue a drowning person:

Prehospital Management

Drowning survival depends on a management chain, starting outside the hospital and continuing in-hospital during the post-resuscitation phase. Prehospital care personnel provide opportunity to perform rapid rescue from submersion. Re-establishing ventilation before CA nearly assures no long-term lneurological sequelae [19 , 20 ]. If CA occurs, CPR provides the best chance of neurological recovery.

Controversy exists over the optimal CPR method. Bystander chest compressions alone may be lbetter than rescue breathing combined with chest compressions (standard CPR) for resuscitating patients with sudden CA [21 ]. lDrowning victims were excluded in this analysis. Drowning victims asphyxiate which leads to CA, so maximizing oxygenation in addition to perfusion during CPR may improve outcome [22 , 23 ].

lTwo prospective, population-based cohort studies support performing standard CPR for drowning. Rescue breathing and chest compressions [ 24 , 25 ] and bystanders [26 ] may play an important role. Thus, it is recommended lthat drowning victims with no signs of life be provided chest compressions with rescue breathing rather than compression CPR alone.

The best method for ventilating and oxygenating drowning victims has not been established. lSupplemental oxygen should be provided to all drowning victims with evidence of hypoxemia or respiratory distress. Continuous or bi-level positive airway pressure may be advantageous if hypoxia is present and spontaneous ventilatory efforts are suboptimal in the conscious patient [27 , 28 ]. Assisted ventilation with a bag-valve-mask should be performed in unconscious patients or those that cannot maintain their airway.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677166/

Meaning, after you rescue a drowning person, you perform CPR while you called for an ambulance or a doctor. Leaving them for several minutes without CPR while you rush them to a hospital, you are leaving them to die.

You are to perform CPR on the drowning person until the water within them is expelled (until they cough out the water). If they don't cough out the water within them after you perform CPR for 30 mins to 1 hour, a doctor can confirm them dead.

Please note, there's a difference between a drowning person and a drowned person. A drowned person is someone that died from water suffocation. A drowning person is someone that is about to die from water suffocation.

The water will have filled their lungs and stopped the breathing of a drowning person, their heart may have also stopped beating (Cardiac arrest), but they are still not dead. With proper CPR for artificial respiration that includes pressing of chest to restore the heart beat, a drowning person can be saved.

The action of rushing a drowning person to a hospital can never be more wrong because the first thing that should be done after rescuing a drowning victim is to perform CPR on the person.

Unfortunately according to the narration of the people in the house, Davido's son was treated like this eliminating the little boy chance of survival.

“The boy left the house, walked to the back where the swimming pool is situated and fell into the swimming pool. Nobody noticed until much later. At that point in time, he had drowned and was at the bottom of the swimming pool.

“So, they brought him out and rushed him to the Lagoon Hospital, where the doctors tried unsuccessfully to revive him. They left the hospital and rushed the boy to Evercare Hospital, where he was declared dead.

https://leadership.ng/ifeanyi-autopsy-likely-as-police-free-six-davidos-domestic-staff-detain-two/