Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning

http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/

by msg • 16 years ago

611 126 16 years ago

btilly7• 16 years ago

To this should be added some information for would-be rescuers of drowning people.

The instinctive drowning response is a climbing response. What you see are twin splashes as the person's arms flail wide looking for something to grab on to. If they find it the automatic response is to grab it, climb up, and stand on top. The person doing this is panicked and has massively more strength than you think. If you are swimming and a young child does that to you, you will go under water. If you panic, you will get the same reflex, and will drown yourself.

Therefore if you wish to rescue someone who is drowning, you have 4 basic options.

1. The most common response is to go to them and try to rescue directly. If the water is shallow enough that you can stand, letting them climb up you can be OK. Otherwise this is suicide. Frequently one drowning leads to multiple others, and this is exactly how they get started.

2. Keep your distance and hand them something to climb on. They can't see a pole to grab it, but if they touch, they will climb, which gives them air.

3. Wait until the drowning person is unconscious. Then go to them and tow them in. If you can't stand in the water, and don't have anything to do 2) with, this is recommended.

4. (For trained people only.) Swim up behind them, grab them from where they can't grab you, and lift them up to get air. Talk soothingly to them until they relax, and then tow them in. If they get hold of you, DIVE so they let go, back off, circle around, and start again.

If you do not have lifeguard training then I strongly recommend against trying #4. Unless you know how to do the eggbeater you won't know how to hold them out of water. And if they grab you, you have surprisingly little time to make the correct response before you are drowning as well.

Oh yes, and another data point. Drowning is the #1 cause of death in toddlers. It is quiet. It is fast. Beware of the backyard pool.

dgabriel• 16 years ago

My now 8yo, then 3yo, almost drowned in a hotel pool while I was swimming just a couple of yards away from him. I reached him in seconds, and his reaction was to scale me like a tree, at which point I flung him onto the concrete. He had some scrapes and bruises, but he was alive.

I'm not a trained rescue professional, and I didn't know any of this information before you posted it. It's kind of amazing to look back and see how textbook his response was (and how terrifyingly unprepared I was).

drx• 16 years ago

This is incredibly useful information, thank you for posting it. In emergency situations (like drowning) I tend to try to rescue people who might be in danger (as long as it's safe, of course). This I did not know and it could have had dire consequences for me.

superk2• 16 years ago

In regard to 3... How do you know when the drowning person is unconscious... that would be when they dip under and don't come back up? They're lungs would be full of water then? So you would have to swim down to them, pull them to dry land (they won't float) and resuscitate them? I understand sometimes that could be the only option... but seems like a heavy responsibility.

kelnos• 16 years ago

> but seems like a heavy responsibility.

When in a dangerous situation, your first responsibility is to yourself. Rescuing someone else can be risky, and getting yourself into the same situation as the person in trouble helps no one, and increases the burden on any other would-be rescuers, whether professional (lifeguard, fire fighter, etc.) or another Good Samaritan like yourself.

But I agree that it seems like waiting for the drowning person to become unconscious dramatically increases the chance that they won't survive. That's gotta be a tough decision to make.

btilly7• 16 years ago

How do you know when the drowning person is unconscious

Wait for their hands to stop moving.

that would be when they dip under and don't come back up? They're lungs would be full of water then? So you would have to swim down to them, pull them to dry land (they won't float) and resuscitate them?

They won't sink at this point, they'll just float with their face in the water. (There is a reason why the dead man's float is called that. See http://www.ehow.com/how_6582_survival-float.html for a description.)

And yes, at this point they'll have water in their lungs, and may need CPR.

I understand sometimes that could be the only option... but seems like a heavy responsibility.

If you're not trained, then getting in over your head (literally!) is an easy way to commit suicide. I had multiple years of lessons before any instructor gave me any instruction on how to go after someone in the water beyond, "Don't."

Now one thing that I didn't talk about was how you can tow someone in the water. If you have any swimming training you may be familiar with the elementary backstroke. (If not, hopefully you know the breaststroke, basically it is a version of that except on your back.) If you continuously do the kick from that, you get the whipkick. (Well to get it right you need to keep the knees a little closer together than many people's breaststroke, but close enough.) It turns out that the kick is enough.

Now what you do is lay the person with their head on your chest, your arms coming under their shoulders and crossing their chest, and just do that kick as fast as you can. You won't move very fast, but you can keep both your face and theirs in the air as you go. If you get them early enough, there is a good chance they will start breathing on their own as you tow them. At which point you get them to land and your job is done. If not, you'll get to land alive without having done further damage and can start CPR. (A life skill that I firmly believe everyone should have.)

jakevoytko• 16 years ago

"The instinctive drowning response is a climbing response. What you see are twin splashes as the person's arms flail wide looking for something to grab on to. If they find it the automatic response is to grab it, climb up, and stand on top."

Reading this, I connected the dots on a childhood experience of mine. When I was very young, I was in a public pool that had a "big" deep end, about 5.5 feet. I couldn't swim, but I still went to the deep end. I sank to the bottom and jumped to the surface to get air, and slowly traveled wherever I wanted to go.

All of a sudden, WHAM! I got tackled from behind by a lifeguard and breathed a mouthful of water. He took me out and asked me if I was OK. Between hacking coughs I said I was. My mom brought my towel to me and asked me what I was supposed to say. I yelled and slapped his legs with my towel. I probably got punished for that later.

At the time I didn't understand why the lifeguard rescued me. I felt fine, and I was probably about a minute away from the edge of the pool at the rate I moved. But that's exactly what I looked like from the surface - both arms grabbing upwards and sideways to drive me to the surface

ihartley• 16 years ago

It's amazing that there aren't many tools for drowning response, and any new technology recieves major pushback from the ineffective incumbents in the space. Check out http://life-safer.com/ they make a throwable, bouyant, foam disk that is significantly more effective than anything else available.

philwelch• 16 years ago

I read this comment out loud to my girlfriend, who noted that toddlers sometimes drown by stumbling into a bucket of water. It occurred to me then that instinctive responses are a lot like code--you can hope it'll cover most of the cases most of the time, but so much code I've written does the equivalent of walking into a bucket, falling in head first, and flailing desperately when it reaches an edge case.

s-phi-nl• 16 years ago

While your advice seems researched and correct, the general advice passed down by Boy Scouts is reach, throw, row, go.

First, try and reach something out to the victim for him to grab hold of. If that won't work, try to throw something for him to hang on to. If that fails, go to them in some kind of boat (though a surfboard may work too). If, and only if, all those things do not work, swim out to rescue them.

[Edit: after having read the article, I realize that this is advice in what to do for someone experiencing aquatic distress, not someone who is drowning. My apologies.

gjm11• 16 years ago

Someone who may or may not be btilly posted exactly the above to Mario Vittone's blog, and got a response from Vittone saying, inter alia, "Your four points contain some good as well as some dangerous advice. There are often too many variables for lists of possible rescue techniques - but waiting for unconsciousness is a very (very) bad idea."

(Emphasis mine.)

btilly7• 16 years ago

It was not I who posted that there.

I fully agree that waiting for unconsciousness is a very bad idea. Obviously it is an option of last resort. However from my training, I believe it to be a better idea than getting killed. And in my training it was suggested as an option of last resort if we had no other options and didn't feel comfortable making a rescue.

And yes, there are a lot of variables that come into play. For example my instructor once saw 3 people drowning in a river. She rescued 2 and let the third drown because she was developing hypothermia. (The story is that one broke through thin ice, the other two tried to rescue the first. The one who died was one of the would-be rescuers.)

However in general if you have the knowledge and experience to properly judge those factors for yourself, you should know more about drowning than my brief blog post.

sliverstorm5• 16 years ago

It sounds cold, but if you are not a trained professional, they are in deep water, and you cannot throw them something, you run the very (very) real risk of having you BOTH drown and die if you try to save them while conscious. In case you didn't read the article, if they get a hand on you they will climb you like a tree and have the strength of a million doses of adrenaline.

What solution do you propose instead?

It's not unprecedented either. In CPR training, you are taught the Heimlich. You are also taught that you have to ask someone who is choking if they want help (or you will be sued, regardless if you save them). If they say no, they don't want help, you can either leave them to die, do it anyway and get sued for all you are worth (don't count on mercy, the law is 1000% against you), or wait until they pass out and then do it anyway (you are then protected by the Good Samaritan law)

jdoliner• 16 years ago

Waiting for unconsciousness is neither a bad idea nor should it be considered a last resort. Thinking of it as such is exactly how you get yourself in trouble yourself. It's amazing how quickly you can get incapacitated in the water, you might think you can hold your breath for 30 seconds with no problem, but that doesn't work when you start with empty lungs and a kick to the stomach. Then you're oxygen deprived from the very beginning and within 15 seconds your survival instincts have taken over. Now there are two drowning people which means the next person who wants to try and make the rescue will have two people jumping on him. No one in his right mind is going to try that so the only option is to wait for unconsciousness. Unfortunately by the time the second person is unconscious the first person may well be dead.

As btilly points out very aptly the first step to the rescue always has to be getting the person to calm down. However the moment they start to climb you, you need to go under to get them off. If you do manage to get a grip behind them and they start to struggle their sometimes lifeguards will arch their backs pulling both the rescuer and the victim's heads under water, this hopefully gets them to calm down.

One point that isn't mentioned is that this is an entirely different situation if you have a flotation device buoyant enough to hold both of you. Lifeguard tubes are ideal for of course ideal but fun noodles or kickboards can be used in a pinch. With such a device, your goal is to get a hold of the person without losing your float. With Lifeguard tubes you want to approach the person (ideally from behind) with the tube across your chest underneath your arms and grab them underneath their arms once you have them try to get as much of their weight onto the tube. If the tube is supporting their weight then they can't put any unexpected pressure on you, and they'll calm down very quickly when they feel the stability.

theycallmemorty• 16 years ago

My wife was taught in her lifeguard training to swim towards the person but as you get closer extend your feet towards them as if you were sitting in a lazy-boy facing them. Then if they try to pull you under you can kick them in the face and knock them out.

Is this common advice?

joe_the_user• 16 years ago

I have been in a position where I felt like I was drowning and I was able to call for help. But I'd agree that if it had been worse, the results might have been as described.

mrtron3• 16 years ago

I was a lifeguard in my youth. I am an incredibly good swimmer.

I just went white water rafting with a bunch of friends in Malaysia - and on the boat were 2 other folks that were not great swimmers. We were in pretty good rapids, and the odds were for us flipping at some point. We were all wearing lifejackets, but in the rapids at times it feels like you aren't floating much at all.

The first patch of rapids another boat flipped and a bunch of people clutched on to each other basically climbing the ladder on each other - we quickly got to them but they all had swallowed a lot of water.

I gave a big speech about how if someone is drowning their instinct is to grab you and pull you under - so make sure when helping others you can safely just grab them.

A few rapids later we flipped. I quickly grabbed on to the raft and was doing fine - until I saw one of the poor swimmers floating face down drinking a lot of water and heading towards more rapids. I swam over and grabbed on to her, flipped her on her back and told her to relax we were going to be fine. Then we hit some more rough water and all of a sudden she was pushing down on my shoulders and I was under water for about a minute as we passed through rapids and she was struggling to stay on top of me. I outweighed her by 50 pounds and still struggled to get out from under her while being tossed around in the water. I was comfortable for the first 30 seconds or so, but at that point I started to get the whole "Damnit, I am drowning" feeling. I finally separated myself from her, threw up a few times, and then held the top of her lifejacket from a behind.

My long winded story is intended to say one thing. If someone is drowning, their natural instinct will be to climb on top of you to get above water. It doesn't matter how much bigger you are - how much better of a swimmer. Even if you are really experienced it can still be difficult to rescue a drowning swimmer.

gills2• 16 years ago

Spot on. I'm sorry to hear about your story but it really nails the point home. I was also a lifeguard and a competitive swimmer in my youth, and realized after some time that the single best training I ever had for escaping an active drowning victim was playing water polo! You really have to think of the victim as an adversary, keep a firm grip, and have practiced being extremely stable in the water to manage it.

siculars3• 16 years ago

I recently took the PADI Rescue Diver certification, had been a lifeguard in my youth and currently participate in long distance swimming events (1 - 2 miles) and triathlons. I can tell you that according to the Rescue diving course the correct order of btilly's recommendations would be 2, 1, 4 and possibly 3 (while implementing 4).

It should go without saying, but your immediate course of action is to call for help and/or designate someone to do so in case of an actual drowning situation.

Your preferred choice of action is to stay out of the water entirely. Do not get in the water unless you must. Use any means at your disposal from lines to poles to thrown floatation devices to safely assist the victim. Keep eyes on the victim, assign someone to do so as well - in case you need to gather emergency equipment (above or swimming aides like mask/fins if they are available and if you are going in).

Next would be a wading assist, again, waist/chest deep wade into the water with a line/pole/floatation device.

Finally, if you must enter the water remember that YOUR SAFETY is above that of the victim. If you allow the victim to overpower you, you will become a victim yourself. The most powerful tool at your disposal at this stage is your voice. Talk to the victim, reassure them, let them know you are there for them and everything will be ok. Reel them back from the edge of panic. After that, the next powerful tool at your disposal if you are overtaken by a panicked swimmer is to dive and push the victim away from you while under water - the victim will not follow you down. Rinse repeat until the victim calms down, you get a hold on them from behind, or they pass out. Having the victim pass out is not the worst thing that can happen. It may require rescue breaths and/or cpr once you get the victim to shore/boat.

amalcon• 16 years ago

I was always taught to "Reach, Throw, Go":

First, try to reach them with a pole or something from outside the water

Second, if that doesn't work, throw something that floats like a vest or life preserver. Hope they grab on to it.

Only as a last resort, actually swim out to a drowning person. Your objective should be to put the thing you just threw at them in their hands, not to drag them back to safety.

guyzero2• 16 years ago

The complete list is: talk, reach, throw, row, go, tow, carry which lists the things you try and their order in terms of hazard to the lifesaver.

Tamerlin3• 16 years ago

When I was in lifeguard training, they taught us how to deal with a struggling victim. It was a bit like aikido in the water, except that a panicking victim is probably stronger.

The following year they changed the "rules" and the instructor (who was also a teacher in my high school) said that we were now to keep an eye on a struggling victim, and attempt a rescue only after they stopped struggling. I think they'd had too many lifeguards end up in need of rescue themselves when they went after a panicked victim and got yanked underwater.

nradov• 16 years ago

A rescuer just died near Carmel, CA on Sunday. http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_15449083

patio11• 16 years ago

The drowning response is also why you are strongly advised to not get into the water to assist a drowning victim and why trained rescuers who do so violently manhandle drowning victims (if you administered similar aid on land it would look like a violent assault featuring a choke-hold delivered from behind). Drowning victims are virtually incapable of cooperation in their own rescue and their panicked struggles have the very real potential of drowning would-be rescuers.

I pulled someone out once (in flagrant violation of the above advice) -- my (possibly inaccurate) recollection is that he made no noise whatsoever between entering the water and exiting it beyond the sound of the first splash.

btilly7• 16 years ago

When I received lifeguard training 2 dozen years ago, I was taught ways of rescuing people that don't involve the use of force, and the person teaching the class strongly recommended against learning the more violent approaches that were once used.

As I recall, her claim was that they were less effective, and carried a significant risk of causing injury.

whatusername• 16 years ago

Risk of Injury is much better than drowning alongside then.. (But I'm not a lifeguard -- so I'll shutup)

// I was somewhat shocked when I did an L2 First Aid course a couple of years back. The Ambulance Officer running the class talked about CPR -- push much harder than you think you should. A couple of broken ribs will heal. A stopped heat beat wont.

sliverstorm5• 16 years ago

Call me sexist, but once my eyes hit 'her claim' your story all made sense.

I have known many women who espouse things like this, whether it is right or not, whether it flies in the face of reality or not, because things don't line up with how they want the world to be. They'd rather pretend than go with what works. Sadly, it almost always seems to pertain to something truly serious that puts life or limb at risk.

Broken bones are better than dead.

16s• 16 years ago

It's authoritative knowledge such as this that makes the Internet worthwhile (if you can find it among all the garbage). I had no idea what drowning was like before reading this. Thanks for writing this blog post!

krschultz2• 16 years ago

Ugh, this entire post is lifted from the original source and then a link is posted at the bottom. The person who actually wrote this great article is getting none of the revenue. Go to the original instead at gCaptain.

chaosmachine• 16 years ago

The person who actually wrote the article is Mario Vittone. Looks like he just cross-posted to another site.

nostrademons• 16 years ago

Part one of the article is excellent too:

http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/cold_water?11198

Bunch of stuff I didn't know.

mvittone2• 16 years ago

I appreciate the traffic to either site. I wrote the post on gCaptain almost a year ago - it just never really got any play until now. Links to gCaptain are great. It's a professional site owned by a friend of mine. I'm still active duty Coast Guard so my site doesn't generate revenue. I'm just very glad to get the word out about this important subject. Thanks again everyone!

carbocation• 16 years ago

If you were to look at the byline on the gCaptain article, you'd see it's the same individual who has crossposted it.

krschultz2• 16 years ago

whoops

charliepark• 16 years ago

In Boy Scouts, we learned the rhyme "Reach, Throw, Row, Go", regarding the order of assistance to provide.

We also learned that if the victim tries to climb you, to submerge a bit (so they let go) and punch him (or her, sure) in the nuts, and to then rescue him.

gcv• 16 years ago

So when the brain perceives drowning, it basically shuts down and starts doing self-destructive things? The article says that a rescuer being pushed down by someone who is drowning can end up in trouble too — and this is a real risk to a rescuer who normally swims and dives like a fish?

I don't mean to sound skeptical, I'd just like a little clarification. I never understood how swimmers can possibly drown unless hypothermic or completely exhausted. If this is the case, then it's horrible that we haven't evolved out of this destructive "drowning response instinct".

randallsquared• 16 years ago

You call it destructive, but it sounds like it's nearly optimum for getting back out of water you just fell into. "Grab the riverbank or a tree; climb up it." That's simple and effective. The only time it causes further problem is when you're on a boat and fall in, or otherwise find yourself suddenly away from the shore.

thaumaturgy• 16 years ago

Right. I can't swim a lick. Once, while on a solo backpacking trip very much in the middle of nowhere, many tens of miles from the next person, and while navigating a river canyon, I fell into the cold water, well over my head.

Somehow my toe touched something on the bottom and I rocketed out of the water like an explosion. The next thing I knew, I was flopped over onto a large rock like a fish, a few feet from where I fell in.

I still have no idea exactly how that all happened, but near as I can guess I gave the best leap of my life and scrambled the rest of the way up.

I really need to learn how to swim. :-(

Semiapies2• 16 years ago

Despite a lot of floofy rhetoric, we didn't evolve to spend time in the water. We're land apes with reflexes that try to get us out of the water after we've fallen in.

Jach• 16 years ago

Is this rhetoric you're referring to the water-ape hypothesis?

whatwhatwhat3• 16 years ago

When I was a child (about 7 years) I nearly drowned at a public swimming pool full of people. My family was there including my mother, smiling at me from all of 5 feet away.

After I ran out of air and strength... it was actually my (then 9 year old) brother who saved me.

As a child I was simply infuriated with my mother, that she would sit there smiling acting like everything was okay while I was fighting for my life. I guess I know why now.

Thanks for this article -- it won't be forgotten.

ergo98• 16 years ago

Same thing happened to me, and it was my older her sister who pulled me out. I can vividly remember looking up and out of the water.

spanktheuser• 16 years ago

This reminds me of something from scuba certification. After doing all this scary stuff underwater( like taking the regulator out of your mouth, dropping it, then recovering and re-inserting with your eyes closed) one of the last tests was to take off your mask, put it back on, and use your regulator bubbles to blow your mask clear of water. Easy, I thought. You get to keep your regulator in the whole time. So you could literally spend 60 minutes getting this right with absolutely no danger. Frankly, it sounded about as intimidating as washing your hair in the shower.

Oh, how wrong I was. Despite the fact that I knew I was perfectly safe, the second my face was immersed in water, I had to fight hard to not panic. I felt waves of fear threatening to engulf me, and it took every ounce of self control not to bolt for the surface (which can injure or kill you). Two other students did bolt for the surface before being grabbed by instructors. I later learned that this is a very common, instinctive reaction.

I was amazed at how powerful this reaction was, and gained a newfound respect for the lizard brain.

lief79• 16 years ago

In hindsight, and after taking more advanced courses, it became quite clear that scuba instruction was all about teaching the students how not to panic. I hope they make that clear to the instructors, as I only went for personal instruction.

callahad• 16 years ago

Cave training places an extremely strong emphasis on controlling panic. In open water, if you bolt to the surface you might get bent, but there are chambers for that. In a cave, you either swim out, or you drown. You don't even have the option of a quick, merciful DCS hit. Keeping a clear head is essential when your own self-rescue is on the line.

enneff• 16 years ago

> I felt waves of fear threatening to engulf me, and it took every ounce of self control not to bolt for the surface (which can injure or kill you).

It's highly unusual (not to mention irresponsible) to ask diver to do this for the first time outside of a confined-water scenario (like a swimming pool), where the water is shallow and immediate ascent is safe.

atlbeer• 16 years ago

I think s/he was referring to that in general diving at certain depths bolting to the surface can injure or kill you.

As a PADI course this skill-set will ALWAYS be taught in a pool or shallow water.

jodrellblank5• 16 years ago

Reminds me of http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.html (specifically, paragraph 7)

tene• 16 years ago

Reminds me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex

sev3• 16 years ago

Less than a year ago me and a few friends of mine were about to drown and I had accepted it before I got out. A few of my friends were at shore, I was able to wave and yell for a bit, because I had realized I was going to drown before I actually did start to (there was a rip current and so it was pulling my friends and I backward very quickly). From my perspective, it was amazing to me that:

1) I was Yelling and screaming, and my friends at shore continued to stare toward me like everything was completely normal.

2) I was not thinking clearly that the noise from the ocean and waves would not allow my friends at shore to hear me.

3) I was stupid enough at that moment to waste energy by waving and yelling rather than trying to stay afloat.

4) Knowing how to swim well in a pool had little to do with knowing how to swim well in the ocean.

5) During the panic, I did not try to lay on my back on the water, knowing salt water keeps you afloat without much movement necessary

6) Having friends with you is no benefit at all during such a situation. In fact, it's usually a bad thing, because everyone is fighting for their lives, and no one cares what they need to push down to pull themselves up.

Admittedly, we had had a few drinks and lots of food before we went in. Luckily we all survived, but we had all accepted the worst possible outcome. I was able to get out without a lifeguard, but needed to go call one for 2 of my friends who were in worse conditions than I was.

If you ever get stuck in a rip current, swim diagonally toward shore.

krolley• 16 years ago

And importantly, learn to recognise a rip so that you never get in one. As I remember as a kid growing up in Australia, you can tell a rip when you can see the curl and break of a wave on either side of a part of a wave, but not in the middle. This is caused by the water that is flowing from the beach back out to sea.

Also, if you get tired don't fight the rip because you will risk drowning. Float on your back and wait for help.

demallien3• 16 years ago

Also, rips have a sandy colour to them, as they are carrying out all the churned up water back out into the stiller deep water.

If you are on a patrolled beach, and you find yourself in a rip, the easiest thing to do is just roll on to your back and wait for help to arrive - maybe waving a hand in the air occassionally. You certainly don't need to worry about getting swept out to sea, never to be seen again - lifesavers check rips roughly about once every 15 seconds or so (and no, I'm not exagerating - they know where the rips are, and they know that these are a big source of danger). If you are an ok swimmer you might try swimming parralel to the beach to get out of the rip before turning into the beach again. If you're a strong swimmer you can probably swim back diagonally, although if you're a strong enough swimmer for this you probably never thought of yourself as being in trouble anyway, so you probably don't need the advice.

btilly7• 16 years ago

And importantly, learn to recognise a rip so that you never get in one.

Surfers like to recognize where the rips are so that they can get back out more quickly for the next good wave. :-)

Tichy2• 16 years ago

Out of curiosity, how does a rip current make you drown? I've read about it, but could never really imagine it. Does it drag you down? Or is it just exhaustion from trying too hard to get back to shore?

I've read about the cases were people were "lost" in the ocean (the current brought them far away from the shore), but what are the odds if yo keep your calm? I am used to swimming in rivers.

sliverstorm5• 16 years ago

> exhaustion from trying too hard to get back to shore?

Bingo. Rip current drags you out to sea, and the immediate reaction is swim towards the shore. The rip current is stronger than you are, so you exhaust yourself and drown. If you swim diagonally towards the shore (well, I was taught to swim parallel towards shore until out of rip current) you will eventually be able to reach shore.

Reminds me of people running away from a tall falling object like a tree. You won't get away running away from it, only by running out of it's path.

sev3• 16 years ago

Panic is what causes drowning, not the rip current per se. The rip current causes the panic though.

I can only tell you how it felt for me. The rip current pulls you backward, not downward. And the fight against the backward pull power of the ocean directly gets you very tired, and being very tired causes you to not be able to push yourself up too far, causing big waves to hit you in the face, wherein you start swallowing water and get even more tired.

I was swimming away from shore for a while, diving through waves. At one point I checked for sand under my feet and didn't feel any, but kept swimming because the group I was with still was. I got a little tired, and decided to say screw it to my group and I turned around. As I tried to swim back toward shore, the distance from where I was to where the shore was seemed to double. The more I swam toward shore the farther away I was getting. I had a lot to drink and eat in my body, so my muscles weren't functioning perfectly or smoothly anyway. When you witness the distance increasing so drastically, you panic, and you start doing illogical things. Getting on my back did not cross my mind for a millisecond.

It feels like no matter how hard you try you'll just get pulled in further, and that's scary (but not true).

jodrellblank5• 16 years ago

So, at the start, if someone is ladder-climbing-panic-drowning, then they are floating, have air, and have energy ... why are they drowning? What triggered the ladder-climb-panic mode?

whatwhatwhat3• 16 years ago

Possibly some kind of instinctual trigger. Think about the moment where the entire body was fully EXPECTING a lung full of air... and ready for it... but for whatever reason you become submerged and cannot get it.

You aren't unconscious yet because you still have plenty of oxygen, but your instincts have been triggered on a more primitive level -- possibly initiated as the lungs failed to function as expected.

sesqu2• 16 years ago

You underestimate the amount of energy swimming takes, and overestimate the amount of effort it takes to ladder-climb-panic.

It takes continuous, prolonged effort to stay afloat, and a fair bit more to move forward. The less you move forward, the slower your progress and the greater the energy you need to reach shore. You start drowning when you can no longer stay afloat - that is, when you can not quite move enough water downwards to support your weight. When you have no air, you have no patience. Water is quite difficult to lean on, and you will still easily climb out of the water if presented with a grip (but will may not be able to crawl far on the ground).

Swimming is excellent exercise. It will tire you out thoroughly and quite unexpectedly, but you will want to keep close to firmament.

seldo• 16 years ago

I almost drowned when I was about 8 years old and I remember it very clearly. I did exactly as is described -- I was face up, mouth just at the water level, arms flat, completely quiet. My parents -- who had two older children and spent their whole lives by the water -- spotted me and pulled me out.

The thing I remember most is that the overriding sensation was not panic, but calm -- a weird, fatalistic calm. I was gong to die: "oops". It really is an odd physiological response, and you have absolutely no control over it.

whatwhatwhat3• 16 years ago

It's surprising how many people have had a close call with this.

I'm not sure exactly on my recollection, however, I had a similar incident and my reaction was not anything calm. I was angry and very frustrated. My guess is that it probably depends on the person and situation

ssp• 16 years ago

It's surprising how many people have had a close call with this.

It does explain why psychics often talk about how something happened in your childhood involving water. That always seemed pretty unlikely to hit to me, but I guess not.

qeorge• 16 years ago

This hits home. I had a high school friend drown last week, at 11:30 AM, on a crowded beach. I still don't know much about it, but the description sounded quite similar to this:

Tweedy said he saw someone playing in the water. He looked again, and ocean waves were rolling the man over.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100630/ARTICLES/1006...

RIP Carter

dtf• 16 years ago

Interesting instructional video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndbGvjqEweA

sofal• 16 years ago

Mario later on in the comments references some DVDs that show real life examples of drowning behavior: http://www.pia-enterprises.com/watersafety.html

It really is too bad that with all the web technology today, videos like these are not available for free. Seems like they'd help save some lives if they were.

siculars3• 16 years ago

Swimming is so fundamental to a persons survival that, according to Judaism, it is one of the four obligations a father owes his children:

“Teach them Torah, teach them a trade, teach them to swim and find them a wife.”

mootothemax• 16 years ago

Three years ago I came close to drowning. I'm a strong swimmer, spent many years in a canoe, and am very comfortable being underwater.

I went white water rafting with some friends, and we lost it on a tricky section of water. Our instructor was stuck standing on a rock by the raft, and I was in the water holding on to the raft. Fine, except that I was facing the rapid waters head-on, unable to speak and breathe. And still I held on to the raft. It took the instructor screaming that he was willing to break my hand by stamping on it - and then giving my hands a swift warning kick - before I would let go, float away and recover myself.

It was truly scary at the time to think that whilst I'm rational, good with water etc, when in that mildly uncomfortable situation, my brain wanted to hold on, even if it meant I was taking on water. I'm not sure why the threat and warning kick were so effective, but am hugely thankful I got away with nothing but a bit of a bruised mind :)

c1sc02• 16 years ago

Last year I came close to drowning because of massive cramping at the end of a one-hour training in open water. The frightening part is that it took myself a long time to realize I was drowning: I probably was a bit drowsy from hypothermia. I remember going through 'left foot cramping, just continue, you'll be fine' all the way through cramping up of my upper legs & finally abdomen until I realized I was in trouble. I concur that once you are in trouble it is very difficult to signal anything to bystanders.

Lessons learned: swim parallel to the coastline & don't swim alone. When you start to cramp up start to swim more conservatively, change styles, when it gets really bad, assume a fetal position & focus on floating, don't try to swim. The cramps will eventually go away, then you can slowly start moving again. Watch out for hypothermia.

tumult• 16 years ago

The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television.

It is so strange to me that television continuously presents things which are disconnected from reality, and people, who watch television for hours a day, end up using it as a replacement for life experience. I cannot really blame people for this; I think most people (here in America, at least) see most of their lives through television, so it's only natural that it's where most of their 'experience' comes from. But it's still dangerous. And things like this (choking, injuries/wounds, freezing, etc.) are all presented in such an unrealistic way, but with such consistency, that people never even question whether or not that's how it is outside of television and movies.

I wish television producers were more responsible. It's made us into a nation of incorrectly trained, mislead incompetents.

Article is light on HN content, though.

warfangle2• 16 years ago

Medical shows legally have to be responsible. Apparently at some point, someone took medical advice from a soap opera and a life was lost because of it.

From that day forward they hire RNs part time to fill in gaps in the script with medical terms. A friend worked in an office that contracted out an army of RNs for this kind of script work. Pretty weird when you think about it.

CWuestefeld2• 16 years ago

television continuously presents things which are disconnected from reality, and people, who watch television for hours a day, end up using it as a replacement for life experience.

Aside from their absurd depiction of computers and other high tech, which go without saying...

Hollywood depiction of violence is inaccurate, and I think partly responsible for some common fears. On one hand, you'll see hand-to-hand combat go on seemingly forever, with the combatants absorbing huge amounts of damage, yet continuing on without any apparent loss of stamina.

On the other hand, guns are depicted as instant killers. A single shot, even in an extremity or the belly, is immediately incapacitated and no longer a factor (except possibly at the end of the battle when we discover they've been playing dead). In reality, there's nothing that a single shot will do to immediately incapacitate someone, short of outright destruction of the CNS. Even a shot to the heart, femoral artery, etc., leaves at least several seconds of consciousness during which a determined attacker could get off another shot of his own. And according to my self defense firearms instructor, in a conflict it's likely that you won't even notice you're shot immediately, or at least not be aware of the severity.

ajuc• 16 years ago

I've been in situation like described - I, my father, my uncle and my 2 step sisters were swiming in a pond, the pond wasn't very deep - I could stand on the bottom, but the bottom was muddy and feet were falling throught this bottom sometimes even like 10 cm down - I could barely take a breath when standing in the deepest places.

My step sister was walking in the water, when she steped on more muddy bottom and fall under water. She was quiet and doing strange things with her hands, nobody reacted for a while, then I walked to her and give her hand (I was able to stand on the bottom there, but only barely). It looked funny and not dangerous at all - like she just were playing in water, uncle and father didn't know anything is wrong.

To this day I thought that she wasn't really drowning - because she was supposed to do the show like in TV.

mvittone2• 16 years ago

Thanks everyone for the comments and for sharing this article. You guys are great. ~ Mario Vittone

Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning

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