
Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning (2010) - dsr12
http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/
======
hopeless
Practice spotting someone drowning from real videos of public swimming pools:
[http://spotthedrowningchild.com/](http://spotthedrowningchild.com/)

It's good but not perfect since the lifeguard thankfully rescues them before
they drown but it's still a good exercise. I can do this exercise fairly
reliably but I'm not perfect either.

A few years ago I saved a man from drowning _but_ I very very nearly didn't:
[https://medium.com/@ideasasylum/i-saved-a-man-from-
drowning-...](https://medium.com/@ideasasylum/i-saved-a-man-from-drowning-
today-1994833cff4)

~~~
devit
Seems insane to allow non-swimmers to use floating tubes that can flip over
without also wearing personal flotation devices.

Even with a lifeguard, what if multiple people need saving at the same time,
or the lifeguard just doesn't notice it after a long time with no
interventions require.

~~~
JackCh
> _" Seems insane to allow non-swimmers to use floating tubes that can flip
> over without also wearing personal flotation devices."_

Years ago I worked as a lifeguard at a public pool where the policy was no
flotation devices unless you proved yourself a capable swimmer (able to
confidently swim 50 yards.) The rule seemed counter-intuitive for a lot of
people, but I'd say it worked well. We never had any flotation-related
incidents.

Nonswimmers needed to stay in the shallow end (where to be sure there was
still a drowning risk) and because they had to not use any floats, the chance
they'd panick was reduced (panicking usually happens when conditions suddenly
change, such as when somebody falls off a pool noodle even if the water is
shallow enough to stand up.) Taking floats away from non-swimmers, as well as
some other common sense policy such as no rough-housing, greatly reduces the
chance of anything going wrong.

~~~
bonniemuffin
I remember experiencing exactly that failure mode as a kid-- slipping off of a
floatie in the deep end before I was a confident swimmer and needing to be
rescued.

------
yodsanklai
I witnessed once a guy drowning in the sea. There were signs all over the
beach that it was very dangerous to swim there at that time of the year. The
sea was a bit rough but the waves weren't that impressive. Nonetheless, a guy
went for a dip although not very far in the sea, maybe waist-level.
Eventually, he realized he wasn't able to go back to the beach, got carried by
the current and called for help. Fortunately, he was rescued by a surfer.

I certainly wouldn't have gone in the sea considering all the warnings, but at
the same time, I didn't really think the guy was in danger while being so
close to the beach. I think it was a good lesson.

~~~
js2
That sounds like a rip current. A rip current moves out to sea faster than you
can swim, but they typically aren’t very wide. The key is to swim parallel to
the shore till you’re out of the current, then you can swim in. It can be
scary though and obviously panicking is about the worst thing you can do.
People will often try to swim against the current till they tire and then they
unfortunately may drown.

You can sometimes identify a rip current from the beach as a stream of
bubbles/whitewash moving out to sea by they are often hard to spot.

~~~
bradknowles
I've always heard them called "rip tides", not "rip currents".

But whatever you call them, I got caught by one many years ago, when I was a
kid.

It was Wrightsville Beach, near Wilmington NC. My friend and I were swimming
near the pier.

It was all fun and games, for what seemed like a short time.

We kept checking, and the pier never moved. Until one time we checked, and the
pier was gone.

Well, really we were gone and we didn't realize it. We were so far out into
the ocean that we could barely see the end of the pier, much less the beach. I
don't know how far out we were, but research indicates the pier is currently
1200 feet long. Ask yourself how far out you would have to be and not be able
to see the pier from that far out.

Fortunately, I had been well-taught in school, and knew that we had to swim
perpendicular (well, more diagonal) to the tide. We couldn't fight the tide
and try to swim directly to shore, otherwise we would tire out and never make
it. That part had been drilled into my head quite well by the school system of
Wilmington, NC.

So, we started swimming perpendicular to the tide.

I also know that we couldn't swim south, since that's the direction the pier
was in, and we didn't want to risk running into the pier.

So, we swam north. For what seemed like miles. We managed to keep the beach in
view, barely.

When we did finally make land, it was way the bleeping heck to the north. We
definitely couldn't see the pier from there.

So, we started our long trek to the south, walking through the wet sand,
because we didn't have shoes.

I don't know how long it actually took to get back to where our parents were,
but it sure seemed like hours and hours.

When we finally got there, they had never noticed that we had drifted out too
far, or that we were gone at all.

Things could have turned out very differently, if not for the school system of
Wilmington, NC.

~~~
js2
Funny, I grew up in Miami but currently live in Raleigh and have been to the
NC beaches many times. I'm pretty sure I always knew them as rip currents. But
now I wonder if I learned them as tides and started calling them currents at
somepoint. Tides is definitely a misnomer:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current)

I've been caught in one before too but nothing so dramatic!

------
rodrigocoelho
Also, this video: Can you spot the drowning child?

[https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/parenting/69540825/can-
yo...](https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/parenting/69540825/can-you-spot-the-
drowning-child)

~~~
eksemplar
This video actually shows the Hollywood styled drowning. It can look a lot
different from this, and I suspect that’s what the original article is about,
though it’s currently unavailable so who knows.

People who are drowning can look like they are just floating, or sitting in
the water, with their heads barely sticking out and no splashing, yelling or
any sort of alarming thing going on. The reason for this is that they are dog
paddling in an upright position, but rarely get their mouths and noses out of
the water. They can be in this situation for quite a while before they
actually drown, with no real visible signs.

We’re a costal nation(Denmark) and each year tourists drown. It’s especially
tragic when children drown 10-15 meters from their parents that never noticed
something was wrong.

If anyone _especially children_ is dead quiet in the water you definitely have
to check if they are ok.

~~~
Merad
TFA was about instinctive drowning response [1], which seems (to my amateur
eye) to be what’s happening in that video.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinctive_drowning_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinctive_drowning_response)

------
dang
Quite a few previous discussions:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Drowning%20Doesn%E2%80%99t%20L...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Drowning%20Doesn%E2%80%99t%20Look%20Like%20Drowning%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

~~~
jcims
Speaking as a member of the community I'm good with this one reposting every
summer. Super important IMHO.

~~~
organsnyder
Agreed. I've seen this come around every summer for the past few years, and I
don't mind reading it again (especially considering I'm up at the cottage
right now with our young children).

------
watmough
Yeah, my 7 y/o got a bit off her depth in a hotel pool once and was doing
this. In fact she did it like 3 times, and I had to rescue her each time.

So it's really stuck with me that people drown 'very quietly', and to stay
alert whenever my children are in water.

------
ColinWright
Site unavailable due to capacity problems. However, as others have pointed
out, this (or similar) articles have been submitted and discussed many, many
times.

That doesn't make it interesting or unimportant, and I respectfully suggest
people should read some of them.

In particular - READ THIS:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492894)

 _Added in edit:_ This has been discussed more often than the search given by
dang suggests. Here are some, with the number of comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769)
(13)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16939063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16939063)
(0)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14313067](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14313067)
(1)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755)
(74)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11658854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11658854)
(0)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237)
(40)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9685842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9685842)
(1)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7581288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7581288)
(0)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5856312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5856312)
(0)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5822917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5822917)
(0)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4028232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4028232)
(0)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2393594](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2393594)
(10 (mostly meta))

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647662](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647662)
(2)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835)
(127)

~~~
forapurpose
> In particular - READ THIS

In fact, do NOT read it.

Do not take advice on HN (or any Internet forum) about situations involving
safety; people on the Internet don't know what they are talking about, even
when they sound competent or claim credentials (do I really need to say that?)
and someone could get seriously hurt or killed. Unless you are an expert, you
can't tell the good advice from the bad; find an authoritative source.

And in fact, if you read further down the linked thread, someone asked an
apparent professional about the advice; they did not give a favorable response
and called part of it dangerous.

~~~
JshWright
In this case the advise is spot on (i.e. don't get within arms reach of
someone who is drowning unless you know what you're doing). I think warning
people that the situation is more dangerous than it appears is consistent with
your advice that you should rely on experts when possible.

At the risk of "claiming credentials", I'm a paramedic with swift-water rescue
training.

~~~
forapurpose
In my experience, responsible professionals do not give free Internet advice
in situations with potentially serious consequences. Serious situations
require very carefully considered advice; you could leave something out or
misstate something; it could be misconstrued - and someone dies. For much less
dire situations, I don't give professional advice without giving it far more
care than I give an HN comment.

Authoritative sources are great. They probably bring to bear far more
expertise than HN commenters, they've already performed all that careful
consideration, and in many cases they've also tested how the information will
be understood. Again, misunderstandings can be deadly.

The proper response is not 'here's what to do'; it's 'here's a link to an
excellent authoritative source'.

~~~
JshWright
I agree with your general premise. I disagree with your application of that
premise here. In this case the comment is providing a warning that the
situation is more dangerous than it appears.

Someone reading that comment would be more likely to act conservatively,
resulting in fewer deaths.

------
yzmtf2008
What’s even more dangerous is that children can get secondary drowning if they
sucked water into their lung [0]. They would often just look like they’re
tired, like any other child after the beach. But it can be fatal if not
treated properly.

[0]: [http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-your-
hea...](http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-your-
health/health-conditions-library/childrens-health/Pages/secondary-
drowning.aspx)

------
dogruck
Also, most people don’t know how to swim. When you ask a person if they know
how to swim, when you’re headed to the beach, you’ll get:

1 Sometimes: no way, I stay out of the water

2 Usually: uh, sure, yup, I can swim

3 Rarely: Totally, I used to be on a team.

My favorite follow up to #2 is “could you swim 4 laps in a pool without ever
touching the bottom or stopping to take a break? That usually prompts a “what
are you crazy, no way that’s super hard” response. Then I inform the person
that they do not know how to swim, and that they should be extra careful.

~~~
meschi
You are implying that only competitive sport swimmers can actually swim.

~~~
JackCh
Relatively few people who've not been on a competitive team have ever taken
enough swimming lessons to be good for a few brisk laps of the pool. Where I
come from every school child gets probably 20 hours or so of swim lessons in
public school, spread out over several years. In my experience this sort of
background is typically enough to be able to tread water and move around, but
not with correct form. And without correct form they will quickly fatigue.

It's certainly possible for a autodidact swimmer with such a background to go
to the Y pool and start doing laps until they figure out out on their own, but
that's pretty uncommon. And it's also possible for somebody to pay for enough
private lessons to become a competent swimmer, but that's also fairly
uncommon. In my experience every licensed lifeguard I've ever met was
currently or formerly a competitive swimmer; that's not a requirement but
realistically only competitive swimmers could accomplish the 300 yard
perquisite swim required to qualify you to receive training. (As for selection
bias, in my training course there were several without competitive swimming
backgrounds who tried, but failed.)

(In some outlying situations, perhaps such as a coastal community where
surfing is common, the above might not necessarily be true. But for your
typical community I'd say it's a good bet that anybody who hasn't swam
competitively will, if they're able to swim at all, have poor form and fatigue
quickly.)

~~~
whatsstolat
This sounds absymal. Is this the US? Definitely different in Australia and UK.

Maybe there are more pools here.

I used to swim 1k couple of times a week (no breaks) just to "keep fit" not
even competitive. I considered that normal.

~~~
JackCh
Yes this is in the US. The school district owned one pool. A few years of your
12 years in the school district system, students would get a week or two of
lessons during gym class (being bused to the pool from the other schools in
the district, when necessary.) About an hour of lessons 2-3 times a week for
one or two weeks, a handful of times in twelve years. On second thought 20
hours may have been an underestimate, but not by much.

That same pool is also where private swimming lessons for all ages were
available for a modest fee (that program was subsidized by the pool's
existence but otherwise self-funding. I worked as an instructor in that
program for a few years and got a modest paycheck for it.) That pool was also
use for practice and meets for the swim club (competitive swimming for young
children) and the swim team (competitive swimming for teenagers.) Private
lessons were mostly attended by young children, their parents stopped paying
for it once they were reasonably confident their child wouldn't drown and it
was very rare for anybody as old as a teenager to take those lessons. The pool
was also open to the public once or twice a week for a dollar or two and there
was a lane set aside for lap swimming, but it was rarely used.

I'm not sure what the bottleneck was that prevented more school-hour swimming
lessons during their scheduled gym classes. It may have been the busing
requirement, since there were a handful of elementary schools in the district
that were not close to the school building that had the pool.

------
bradknowles
The linked article is from 2010, but I think it’s still as good and valid
today as it was then.

Thanks!

------
vortico
Archive.org mirror
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180528043231/http://mariovitto...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180528043231/http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/)

------
diehunde
There's an excellent episode on stuff you should know podcast about drowning.
They talked about this and several other interesting facts about drowning.

Link: [https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-drowning-
wor...](https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-drowning-works.htm)

------
scarface74
And don't forget about "Dry Drowning". It can happen days after someone is
rescued from actually drowning....

[http://www.livescience.com/59444-dry-
drowning.html](http://www.livescience.com/59444-dry-drowning.html)

~~~
timdoug
"Dry drowning is a term that has never had an accepted medical definition, and
that is currently medically discredited."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning#Dry_drowning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning#Dry_drowning)

~~~
scarface74
In the context of the article "drowning doesn't look like drowning". Drowning
a week after you have been submerged in water doesn't "look like drowning".
The _definition_ may not be medically accepted but the _concept_ is well
documented.

From the original article.

 _Dry drowning occurs when, after being submerged in water, a person 's vocal
cords experience a spasm and close, making it difficult to breathe, said Dr.
Mike Patrick, an emergency-medicine physician at Nationwide Children's
Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who was not involved in the boy's care. When this
happens, the body's response is to send fluid to the lungs to try to open up
the vocal cords. But this can lead to excess fluid in the lungs — a condition
called pulmonary edema. Symptoms of dry drowning usually start within an hour
after a person is submerged in water, Patrick said._

------
danso
Related: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child (1215 upvotes, 384 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185)

------
forkLding
Was a junior lifeguard a long time ago at university pool, not sure if they
still do this but do lifeguards still have flotation device and go into
kicking position when approaching drowning people?

------
openfuture
I don't know how to swim and have almost drowned a few times (~8) from not
really respecting that I can't swim effectively (actually from reading the top
link from ColinWright I am tempted to do a "AskHN: Best way to learn how to
swim as an adult?" there seems to be a lot of knowledge here on this subject)

One of those times was particularly bad and someone had to come in and rescue
me. I had gone to a swimming pool the day before and done a couple of strokes
and thought to myself "this isn't too bad" but then we went to this cliff next
to a flooded canyon where people like to jump into the water (it's very deep
but only around 10 meters across and you have to swim across to get to the
cliff). I wanted to be safe so I started by going parallel to the bank to be
sure I could do it but after doing a stroke and keeping my head out of water I
thought "what the hell I'll go for it" and turned while swimming and started
going across. With no experience and a very out of my element I was rushing
and basically managed to exhaust myself when I was half way (I could have
gotten to that same spot in one kick from the bank probably). It was a very
strange feeling I couldn't move at all! My body was completely exhausted and I
couldn't summon an ounce of energy so I started to drown. The issue was that
no one really took it seriously and my friend who was standing on the other
side and had said he'd help me if anything went wrong was just looking at me
like "come on.." so gradually my panic rose and rose until my face
communicated sufficient terror for him to realize that I was going to die.

The problem of course is when you are really panicked this climbing response
(that I just learned about today by reading ColinWrights top link in this
thread) kicks in and you become dangerous. I did know that panicking people
tend to kill their would-be saviors in their panic but I wasn't really
thinking..

Anyway he jumps in and I bear hug him instantly and we both start drowning,
except I realize we're going to die and go completely limp just keeping my
hand on his shoulder and my eyes open. He manages a stroke or two and then I
do the climbing response and pull on his shoulder and manage to grab a rock
and pull on it and boom I'm up and standing on the other side wheezing and
coughing and with a crazy headache.

It's very important to start saving at first signs of trouble and not waiting
for signals of distress, by then people have already lost their rationality. I
think what saved me is just how mentally prepared I was for this exact
scenario and also having experienced it before but with no one to help me
(needing to breath out all air and walk on the bottom of the ocean / pool to
find something to grab / float with). Being careful about not breathing in
water (better to suffocate) and having done a bunch of yoga was also useful.

My biggest lesson was that swimming isn't binary, anyone can swim, it's more
about the gradual efficiency improvements you make. Since then I've made some
progress in learning to relax again and now I know how to float on my back but
I'd like to buy a buoy for open water swimming and start practicing in the
ocean. I'd love it if anyone can inform me of the sanity of that plan or give
me good resources and advice.

~~~
avar

        > [..]bear hug him instantly and we
        > both start drowning[..].
    

For anyone who knows how to swim who's on the other side of this, what I was
taught you should do is:

a) Try to find another way to deal with the situation, e.g. throw something
that floats at that person, or swim to them with a tree branch, or anything
you have at hand. You'll be risking your life approaching them if they're all
you can grab.

b) If you're OK with risking your life, you dive, approach them from
underwater from the rear, and push them up by the hips long enough that they
can breathe or show that they're not panicking. If they are you let them go,
swim away, take a breath, and repeat.

c) If somehow they manage to grab a hold of you you dive. Their panic reflex
is to try to approach the surface. If you try to also approach the surface
they'll try to climb on top of you and they'll likely kill you. It's really
hard to get rid of someone clinging to you in the water in panic. Even an 8
year old could kill an adult male under those circumstances.

People who are drowning are in a complete state of panic. If you're close
enough to shore you may both be better off if you let them lose consciousness
and haul them in unconscious and try to resuscitate them, otherwise you might
both die.

