
Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning - kyleperik
https://www.soundingsonline.com/voices/drowning-doesnt-look-like-drowning
======
zaxomi
I remember reading this several years ago, and it brings back memories of the
two times I was very close to drowning.

The first time I was about 13 years old, and was swimming in the
Mediterranean. Me and a friend had swim out to a raft, and when we where
swimming back to the beach we made a bad decision to swim against the wind to
a floating rope, instead of straight in. After about half the way I was
exhausted, but I realized it in time, and turn on my back I yelled for help.
My friend didn't notice, but people from the raft noticed and helped me.

The second time was in a lake, and I must have been about 20 years old. A lot
of friends was swimming out and I followed, only to realize that it suddenly
was too deep to stand on the bottom. I turned around and began to swim back to
the beach. This time I felt the panic. I used all my energy to swim back,
trying to keep my head above the water. Another friend was on the beach,
recording me with his video camera (with zoom). Calling for help was not an
option in my head. All energy went to keeping the mouth above the water. I
exhaled under water, to maximize the time I had to inhale while the mouth was
above water. I remember thinking "Stop filming and help me". Finally I felt
the bottom again, and could stand on it. I have never seen that video
recording and I don't remember if I ever told him how close he was to record
my downing in full color...

(Sorry for errors, English isn't my native language)

~~~
titanomachy
Nice thing about the Mediterranean is that it's warm and salty. Even if you
don't know how to swim you can float without spending very much energy, as
long as you can avoid panicking.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
> you can float without spending very much energy, as long as you can avoid
> panicking

The article makes it sound like this might be covered by the Instinctive
Drowning Response? It said it doesn't look like panic, and that it involves
"Trying to roll over onto the back"

------
danso
I had guessed this would point to the interactive site:
spotthedrowningchild.com:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/summer-of-
sc...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/summer-of-
science-2015/latest/this-lifeguard-sees-a-drowning-child-would-you-have-)

Discussed awhile ago as a Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185)

~~~
prmph
One thing I noticed was that it seems all those rescued are black.

~~~
Hextinium
A majority of blacks in America can't swim suprisingly. There was a really
great story on the BBC for it: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-11172054](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11172054)

------
JJMcJ
Two families I know lost children to drowning. In both cases it was "we just
looked a way for a few seconds", with intense guilt even years later.

Something I read, merciful happy ending: Father was in water with his wife,
son splashing around about 10 feet away. Suddenly a boat skipper leaps off a
nearby pier, runs right at them, knocks parents out of the way and gets their
drowning son out of the water. Even 10 feet away they were unaware their son
was drowning.

Also happy ending, YouTube of a lifeguard in a public pool. To my eyes nothing
going on, but lifeguard is out of her chair and diving blowing her whistle on
the way down and gets a kid safely out of the water.

------
InclinedPlane
As a followup: avoiding drowning isn't about learning to swim, it's about
learning to be comfortable in the water and able to rely primarily on
floating.

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forapurpose
Last time I saw this story, years ago, I did a little looking around to
determine if it was just one person's theory or something generally accepted
by experts. It's an important question; misinformation about drowning could
get people killed.

I couldn't find evidence of its acceptance by experts - every mention of the
theory led back to the same person. But my time and resources were limited,
and I have no expertise in this area myself; it's very possible I just didn't
know where to look. Does anyone know if this theory is widely accepted by the
people who know better than I do?

~~~
maxander
Googling “Instinctive Driening Response” turns up a paper “Observations on the
Drowning of Nonswimmers” by Frank Pia, as pribably the original source... or
rather, it turns up the citation of such, but not the paper itself.

~~~
forapurpose
I'm not sure what is intended by the parent, but Pia is the source to which
all mentions of this theory lead, in my limited research (or Pia and Mario
Vittone, the author of the article which heavily cites Pia). So the parent is
not evidence of broader acceptance by others.

------
aaron695
Videos of people drowning
[https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw](https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw)
(non death in the ones I watched) not sure if there are better out there .

Past discussions on HN talk about what to do, which is missing from this
popular article.

