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Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

spotthedrowningchild.com

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Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#261

Post by tyho »

dvirsky wrote: post #214

Oh great, my son who's 7 years old and can barely swim, is going to a water park tomorrow as part of his summer camp, and I won't be there to watch over him. Just what I needed to see right now :) Of course there are lifeguards out there and there's the camp staff watching over the kids, but it's my child, I can't help being a little stressed about it. It's time for proper swimming lessons I guess.

I am from the UK, and here everybody learns to swim at school around 6, it is simply part of the curriculum. It is treated like reading or writing, if you can't do it you get put in special classes till you can. I would guess more people can swim here than can ride a bike. Lots of people in these videos look like they can't swim at all! Is this the norm in the USA?

Edit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1521238/Children-unab...

EDIT2: Looks like I was wrong about swimming vs cycling, it is fairly close though: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#262

Post by RaleyField »

sandworm101 wrote: post #155

I'm about to go swimming, I do so every day. The truth is that lifeguards at pools rarely ever see "drowning" and almost never have to pull people from the water. It's a one-a-year thing. Heart attacks are more common. I know of one pool locally that in 40 years has only seen two deaths, one heart attack and one murder. Drowning isn't an issue. More people are hurt in the showers than in the pool. And far more on the…

> Drowning isn't an issue.

Unless the website isn't showing drownings happening in the same pool 27 times, but hundreds of identically constructed pools then the website is a counterexample showing that drownings happen relatively regularly.

Obviously there are numerous factors, but the primary factor that we don't see more deaths is that lifeguards exist.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#263

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

TheGRS wrote: post #131
616c wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I guy with a young child, who ditched floaties and makes him always swim with a life jacket, thank you. And thanks for watching other people's kids. Wage or not, that job can become real rewarding, especially once you are the humiliated and terrified parent. I do not even let my kid walk around our community pool without it on!

A thankless job too, I remember hating life guards growing up because they would blow their whistle at all sorts of things. They aren't trying to be jerks of course, but that was my perception when I was very young and just loved swimming. Being older I see how tough that job would be.

To be fair, some life guards are really boring martinets with no sense of fun.

Other life guards dive into the deep end from the exhaust hatch in the ceiling after the pool is closed to the public.

I'm thankful for both types but I slightly favor the latter.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#264

Post by Turbo_hedgehog »

dpeck wrote: post #137
smokey_the_bear wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think of this style of lifejacket/water wings? http://www.amazon.com/Stearns-Puddle-Jumper-Deluxe-Jacket/dp... That's what we use with our two year old son, though he's also only in pools with one-on-one attention. I'd prefer to just take him to shallower pools, but his feet just don't touch in any of our local pools, and puddle jumper seemed like a good option for him to have a little independent explora…

they're great, have several for my kid. One at grandparents houses, and one at home. Class 3 Coast Guard approved, really happy with them.

Nitpick but it's Type 3 (III), not a class ("Class" gives me the impression it's a higher or lower rating of device).

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#265

Post by jessaustin »

ender7 wrote: post #144

Friendly reminder: rescuing a drowning person (even a child) is incredibly dangerous if you have not been trained in how to do it. They will try to climb on top of you if they get a hold of you and unless you are an exceptionally strong swimmer they will then proceed to drown you. The drowning reflex overrides most people's abilities to process other thoughts, with the result that a loved one is just as likely to dro…

...rescuing a drowning person (even a child) is incredibly dangerous...

If you're swimming in crowded conditions, this can happen when you least expect it. I don't actually remember learning to swim, so it wasn't remarkable that I was hanging out, treading water, in the deep end at a resort at the age of six or seven. What was remarkable was suddenly finding myself at the bottom, thrust down by strong adult hands. Apparently my instincts were good, so before surfacing I swam away from the non-swimming adult who had just descended a ladder and grabbed the first thing that came to hand. Apparently the buoyancy she got from me was enough to get her back to the ladder. Several minutes later I was telling my mother that I thought someone had dunked me, when the non-swimming woman came up and tearfully apologized.

Teach your kids to swim, while they're very young!

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#266

Post by gkya »

Afton wrote: post #218
jsprogrammer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It" is typically reserved for inanimate, non-sentient objects in English. Besides, the story wasn't about a generic child, but a "small boy, maybe 6 or 7 years old" and was referred to with "his", "he", etc. multiple times.

I don't actually understand the downvotes you are getting, unless people think that this just isn't adding to the conversation, but in the interests of making lemonaide: We often use neuter (gender-neutral) pronouns in English, just not this one. I've heard native English speakers say things like "If a mother wants to use the nursing room, they can just key in the code in their pamphlet". There are definitely restric…

A language is defined in terms of how it is used, but a language is not supposed to be used in the way it was defined, if so, we'd still be speaking proto-indo-european, or maybe we'd never be able to speak, as there wouldn't exist any grammar before a language existed. So, being a grammar nazi is plain stupid.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#267

Post by Natsu »

DominikPeters wrote: post #80
jsprogrammer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it? Did the boy do this intentionally? Did he go unconscious when entering the pool? Was he trying to stay under as long as he could? Why was he not moving at all on the way in? <- Down-mods for relevant questions.

Some languages (particularly German) use the neutral gender when referring to children. It's actually quite jarring for me as a German to have a child (especially a generic child) referred to as "he" or "she" in English.

You're right, of course, but this sounds pretty rude in English. It would be nice if there was some way to privately suggest a correction without making a big deal out of things.

As someone who speaks other languages, I know there's a point where it's hard to make progress because you are fluent enough to be understood easily and yet you make significant mistakes that nobody will bother to correct unless you ask.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#268

Post by Natsu »

irishcoffee wrote: post #30

I would like to point out that any flotation device in a pool besides a life jacket is just asking for problems. I life-guarded for almost 10 years, the only way I would ever let anything that supported a human floating __besides__ an approved life jacket was if the pool was almost empty (such that the one person got my undivided attention) and if I knew the child to already be a strong swimmer. I highly encourage ev…

This video is one I recognize from the series of pool rescues that was on HN a few days back. Having watched a number of videos from that wave pool, I can confirm that "kid flips tube after climbing on it and is dumped face down" is probably the #1 thing that leads to a rescue.

That said, if you're watching for them, I just sort of defocus to watch the whole pool at once and look for the particular splashes of the drowning person's "swim" that become distinctive after you've seen it enough times.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#269

Post by jessaustin »

tyho wrote: post #261
dvirsky wrote: post #214

Oh great, my son who's 7 years old and can barely swim, is going to a water park tomorrow as part of his summer camp, and I won't be there to watch over him. Just what I needed to see right now :) Of course there are lifeguards out there and there's the camp staff watching over the kids, but it's my child, I can't help being a little stressed about it. It's time for proper swimming lessons I guess.

I am from the UK, and here everybody learns to swim at school around 6, it is simply part of the curriculum. It is treated like reading or writing, if you can't do it you get put in special classes till you can. I would guess more people can swim here than can ride a bike. Lots of people in these videos look like they can't swim at all! Is this the norm in the USA? Edit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1521238…

Unfortunately both biking and swimming seem to be "privileged" activities in USA. Unless one lives in the inner city or a desert, it doesn't actually take much money to bring your children to a stream or lake (or, for not much more money, a public pool), but many parents are uncomfortable around the water themselves. Those of us whose relatives got us into the water as toddlers are fortunate indeed.

It would be nice to imagine that the average USA public school could bring children to a pool and teach them to swim. It seems unlikely, however.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#270

Post by irishcoffee »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #263
TheGRS wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thankless job too, I remember hating life guards growing up because they would blow their whistle at all sorts of things. They aren't trying to be jerks of course, but that was my perception when I was very young and just loved swimming. Being older I see how tough that job would be.

To be fair, some life guards are really boring martinets with no sense of fun. Other life guards dive into the deep end from the exhaust hatch in the ceiling after the pool is closed to the public. I'm thankful for both types but I slightly favor the latter.

If you get to know the lifeguards, most of them prefer the latter. I distinctly remember taking 2 umbrellas, one in each hand, and after climbing up onto the guardshack, taking a running leap into the pool.

Needless to say I had to buy 2 umbrellas least my boss found out.

I always likes horsing around with the kids, when we developed a relationship such that they listened to the rules, which really wasn't asking a lot. Don't run, don't dunk people, get out when I ask you do (adult swim, thunder/lighting) and stay out of the deep end if you haven't passed the swim test.

There are boring guards, just like there are boring people. I have found that men and women (mostly teenagers at that point) who elect to hang out in their bathing suits (read: basically underwear) 40 hours a week are usually a lot of fun to be around. There is a specific sense of self-confidence that I never really thought about until replying to your comment.

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