https://external-preview.redd.it/RsEQy4N3buBjjO2vHMBuS5AZHv16qLa72SXoe4-E-nQ.jpg?auto=webp&s=65a88aec47e2087b08cc3fef6cf21ca99286fd39
TIL that drowning is often quick and silent. While drowning, the victim’s mouth can only stay above the water for just enough time to breathe. The victim is not usually able to wave or yell for help. Because of this, most onlookers assume the event to be regular swimming.
Yes. The image of drowning we see on TV is for dramatic effect, with the fatal consequence that it has become engrained as our default image.
Lifeguards are trained to see past all the people in the water enjoying themselves not noticing the person nearby silently drowning.
The drowning part isn’t really all that quick, just the sinking part. It can easily take up to 3 minutes to actually black out, and every second of that time can feel like an eternity when you’re actually experiencing it. In saltwater, it can actually take longer to black out and eventually die (up to 10 minutes).
– source: almost drown once and later signed up for and went through extensive “aquatic training” while in the military.
I knew this an was at the lake with other dads and their kids. All of the kids where jumping off this high point, and one of them hit pretty hard flat on his back. All of the dads and kids bust out laughing, but I was eagle-eyeing him. He bobbed up and down just grabbing his breath a little. Us dads were kind of far away. I yelled “He’s drowning!” and all of the dads thought I was nuts. I took off towards him as quick as I could (5 days out from knee surgery), which was slow as hell.
Finally one of the dads just took my word for it and dove in. By the time he got there, the boy had went under for good. He dove down and found him. They pulled him up and gave him some compressions and he came back to fairly quick.
This was many years ago, and it still haunts me. I would not have got to him in time with my knee issue. What would have happened if that dad didn’t react when he did? Son of a bitch. None of them recognized that he was drowning. The stuff of nightmares.
My first job was a lifeguard. Had a job later on at a lake (not as a lifeguard). So many drunken deaths with lots of spectators. At a lake, once they go under, it’s near impossible to save them.
When I was walking home one night when I was really young, and really drunk, on straight vodka and whiskey I decided to lie down on the side of the road. All of a sudden I was submerged in water; I somehow ended up in the stream next to the ditch. I’ve often wondered how close I came to drowning, and dying, in the most inauspicious and humiliating of circumstances.
I still remember the confusion, and the cuts on my wrists, after somehow getting my bearings, climbing over the barbed wire and getting out of that predicament.
It would’ve been an awful way to die.
I was 10 and didn’t know how to swim. I was on an air mattress when suddenly I fell off. I stood in the water but only my forehead was visible. I tried jumping or moving. There was a rock behind me to maybe stand on but was deeper. I felt calm. Then some man pulled me out of the water and I couldn’t stop coughing. My sister and dad never noticed. I’m very lucky to be alive.
[Reminds me of this series of YouTube videos.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sFuULOY5ik) It definitely opened up my eyes as to how quick and hard to spot drowning is.
Can confirmed, was almost drowned by a drowning guy once because I didn’t fully grasp how dire his situation was.
I was at our local pool once. Not a huge pool and lots of kids playing. The deep end was about 2m I think. I was with my kids and I was looking at this kid who was doing something funny. Seemed to be just bobbing a bit in the water. I watched her for about 15 seconds before I realized she could barely touch the bottom and was “bobbing” up with her tip toes to get her head above the water to grab some air. She didn’t scream or shout but I then saw her eyes and they looked terrified. At the same time the life guard saw her and I dragged her closer to the shallow end a little.
She had been surrounded by vigilant parents but we still all missed it. No flailing. Nothing. Really scary.
I’ve been a lifeguard for years now and I can say it’s true it can be hard to differentiate, but all of us get trained to notice the subtle signs to tell the difference. A lot of it is in the face of a person, their eyes get wide and fixated on the lifeguard or the closest side of the pool, and their attempts to keep themselves up look like a person climbing a ladder. It really doesn’t take long for a situation that’s like 3 on the danger scale to go 10/10 with weak/nervous/ injured swimmers, you really have to stay vigilant.
However, if you aren’t trained or aren’t a swimmer who is in the water regularly, remember your safety comes first, try everything you can to get them out before you try getting in the water and physically helping, drowning people always try to hold themselves up out of panic and can end up injuring or drowning you if you aren’t careful.
Moral of the story I suppose would be put your kids in lessons as soon as you can lol, less likely to have these situations happen this way, every drowning is preventable people
My husband sent me this horrible security video of a child drowning in a hot tub *that was filled with fucking adults*. Thankful a hotel employee saved him and the negligent mother is being charged. It’s really eye-opening how quickly someone can drown merely feet from another without that person realizing.
Thanks for posting this. As a parent of a young child, it is important to me that more people understand the folly of commonly held misconceptions about drowning.
Used to be a heli engineer. We used to call it “bobbing” and I’ve pulled a few out before they go under.
As a former lifeguard it is hard to spot if you are not trained to understand. This is why I preach to new parents to get their babies in the pool as early as 3 months old. No dunking but get them used to the water and then when they hit 1, swim lessons. 2, learn how to float with assistance. If they know how to float, partially swim and pull themselves out of the pool, it is a life saver!
Can confirm. I started to drown in a friends swimming pool as a kid, I came up for hour the same time someone else jumped in, and inhaled nothing but water. It took everything I had to get my mouth above water and to barely get the world help out of my mouth in the faintest volume imaginable, and luckily it was enough for my friends mom to here me. The initial struggle was scary, but once I started to go under i couldn’t think clearly enough to be afraid.
*to onlookers. I nearly drowned as a kid and it was neither silent nor quick
We had this swimming pool in our residential high school and it was graded by depth from 5 to 10 feet. Me, a regular ass teenager as i was back then, did not know how to swim, i could just about stay afloat in a weird oscillatory motion. But still one day my dumb ass got excited and i went to the 10 feet and accidentally lost grip of the pipes that ran around the perimeter. The next few minutes i felt this thing. I was trying to call to my friend nearby, but in the half seconds i got up i could only gulp air+water. People around took about 5 mins to notice. I’ve never felt so effin helpless.
A lot of people who are in the process of drowning will forcibly pull the head of people attempting to rescue them underwater. Survival instinct in its purest form.
I nearly drowned in a pool at 6 or so. Yeah that’s how it goes.
Maybe there should be some kind of agreed upon hand signal that means I’m drowning.
If you see a hand sticking out of the water flipping everyone off go check if they’re alright
Creepy…
Just put a wide angle camera overhead a swimming pool that would track individuals and raise alert with exact coordinates if something is wrong (like not moving with head underwater, very easy to detect that).
The youtube channel [LifeguardsRescue](https://www.youtube.com/user/LifeguardRescue11) has tons of videos showing this.
it is really hard to pick out the child havon problems staying above the water among the crowd.
I just remembered what happened years ago at my niece’s pool party. Basically i was chilling in the pool with my daughter in my left arm when i noticed someone underwater, right beside me, seemingly struggling to stay afloat. It was a young kid, around 5 yo i assume. I never heard a struggle or whatnot.
Anyway, I lifted the kid with my right arm and walked to shore (the pool was 5ft). I was all smiles as i felt like a hero for saving that kid, but as i let the kid go, her mother had this glare at me like i drowned her kid. Total mood killer.
I’ll never forget that moment, not because i saved someone, but because a bitch of a mother who left her daughter to drown spoiled that moment for me.
I can honestly believe that. One time while swimming during a school field trip I took a huge gulp of water while I was trying to breathe. I panicked because I could only cough and sputter when my head was above water and thus couldn’t breathe or call for help. I thought I was gonna die but I struggled to the side of the dock and found a hand hold to prop myself above water. It was only then that one of the NINE life guards noticed I was struggling.
Whenever you are in water, you are drowning. Swimming is just a constant fight against drowning.
FL resident for whole life and self taught swimmer here. Growing up in or near the water has shown me a few things about potential drowning. It’s true about how quickly it can happen and parents should exercise the same vigilance they would with their child near firearms or an open fire. In my case the 2 times I nearly drowned were from exhaustion from treading water while in over my head. Lucky for me there was someone there to push me into shallow water before calamity struck. Once as an adult playing Frisbee in the surf with a friend and his wife, she became tired and nearly drowned, we got to her just in time. Learning to swim as a child and especially how to float, relax, be calm and breathe are paramount.
My parents took me (3 or 4 years old) and my much older siblings (13 and 14 years old) to swim in a gravel pit in the 1970’s. I remember walking in the water and I stepped into, what I think was a submerged tire, and it slid and caught my foot and pulled me under. I remember looking up and seeing the sun shining down through the water which had lots of sticks and pieces of leaves floating around. Somehow, I was able to disentangle my foot and I got to the surface just in time to see that my family just noticed that I was missing.
Yep. A lot of the drownings I’ve paid to see have been super boring.