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Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

spotthedrowningchild.com

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Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#371

Post by mattferderer »

mygo wrote: post #363
aetherspawn wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should be taught this technique. Nethertheless: I did this in the ocean once about 200m off the shore (at that point I wasn’t really in trouble and just wanted a rest) and the waves were too high and I ended up eating a lot of salt water and nearly choking and sinking. It put me in a far worse situation than had I stayed off my back.

The lay on your back technique works for those who it works for, and it should absolutely be taught to everyone just so that whoever it works for knows about it and uses it when they find themselves in a situation when it could save their life. Less drowning in calm waters is a net positive. But there is a percentage of the population who can’t simply float. Some of us literally sink if we don’t swim. One time my fri…

Have you ever tried tilting your head back farther into the water & swimming with your feet slightly?

These 2 things are the difference for me between sinking & floating. Mostly tilting my head further back though.

Of course this fails miserably with even the smallest waves.

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#372

Post by balls187 »

lm28469 wrote: post #288
balls187 wrote: post #249

When I was 12, I went on a week long hike as a scout. We decided to swim across a lake, and 1/2 way through, I got tired, and tried swimming back, but couldn't. I remember having the presence of mind to yell out help before blanking out. My closest friend in the troop luckily turned around, swam back to and drug me back to shore. I was scared of the water after that, but some how ended up fighting my fear and earning…

Something similar happened to me as a kid, I decided to swim from our boat to the shore of the lake, got exhausted 100 meters from the shore. Before going in full panic mode I remembered you can basically float indefinitely on your back with very minimal effort and did just that until I was calm and rested. Turns out our mandatory swimming lessons from the age of 8 weren't as useless as I thought.

Once I learned the "elementary back stroke" I felt that I could safely swim in water again.

Something I learned as part of the swimming merit badge :)

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#373

Post by js2 »

mygo wrote: post #363
aetherspawn wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should be taught this technique. Nethertheless: I did this in the ocean once about 200m off the shore (at that point I wasn’t really in trouble and just wanted a rest) and the waves were too high and I ended up eating a lot of salt water and nearly choking and sinking. It put me in a far worse situation than had I stayed off my back.

The lay on your back technique works for those who it works for, and it should absolutely be taught to everyone just so that whoever it works for knows about it and uses it when they find themselves in a situation when it could save their life. Less drowning in calm waters is a net positive. But there is a percentage of the population who can’t simply float. Some of us literally sink if we don’t swim. One time my fri…

My feet sink if I try to float on my back w/o swimming. But there's another float called the dead man's float that works fine for me. It also works well in rough water:

https://www.sportsrec.com/survival-float-6582.html

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#374

Post by 1e-9 »

mygo wrote: post #363
aetherspawn wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should be taught this technique. Nethertheless: I did this in the ocean once about 200m off the shore (at that point I wasn’t really in trouble and just wanted a rest) and the waves were too high and I ended up eating a lot of salt water and nearly choking and sinking. It put me in a far worse situation than had I stayed off my back.

The lay on your back technique works for those who it works for, and it should absolutely be taught to everyone just so that whoever it works for knows about it and uses it when they find themselves in a situation when it could save their life. Less drowning in calm waters is a net positive. But there is a percentage of the population who can’t simply float. Some of us literally sink if we don’t swim. One time my fri…

Fat and air float. Muscle and bone sink. Your overall buoyancy depends on your particular combination of lung capacity, fat, muscle, and bone. Also, fresh water is not as dense as salt water, so it is more difficult to float in.

Decomposition produces a variety of gases that increase buoyancy.

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#375

Post by Mirioron »

irrational wrote: post #318
lm28469 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar happened to me as a kid, I decided to swim from our boat to the shore of the lake, got exhausted 100 meters from the shore. Before going in full panic mode I remembered you can basically float indefinitely on your back with very minimal effort and did just that until I was calm and rested. Turns out our mandatory swimming lessons from the age of 8 weren't as useless as I thought.

I think the skill of being able to flip onto your back and scuttle to wherever you need to go is more important than knowing how to swim (and I love to swim - I swam 2 kilometers just this morning). Unless you are in super cold or choppy water you should be just fine.

You can also swim on your back and it tends to be much less tiring than swimming normally.

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#376

Post by Mirioron »

scaryclam wrote: post #344
irrational wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the skill of being able to flip onto your back and scuttle to wherever you need to go is more important than knowing how to swim (and I love to swim - I swam 2 kilometers just this morning). Unless you are in super cold or choppy water you should be just fine.

I have some very young nephews. As well as teaching them how to swim, we're teaching them how to flip over and float, just for this reason. If they can do that, and recognise when they're in trouble, then it might just save their lives one day.

Don't forget teaching them how to swim on their backs.

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#377

Post by Mirioron »

fho wrote: post #137
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most depictions of things in movies are like that. Films must show you something interesting, and watching somebody do trial and error painfully on a bash script for 6 hours is not as fun as a fast pace keyboard murder while screaming "i just passed 3 firewalls" with beautiful animations rendering on the screen. If there is a camera, what you see is a lie. The difference between a national geographic documentary and…

Even national geographic documentaries are probably "lies" ... I just had the chance to get some basic insights in to evolutionary biology ... and boy is bloody mauling and devouring of prey just the tip of the iceberg. Intraspecies rape and infanticide is pretty common out there. (Look up the penis of drakes (male ducks) and why it looks the way it does at some point) Siblings competing for food with only a small pe…

What opened my eyes to all of this is when I saw a video of a seal raping a penguin. I knew nature was brutal, but that was an aspect I had never considered. Then I started noticing more and more information about it. Made me appreciate humans far more.

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#378

Post by bias_var »

I believe this is where tech can be used as a tool to alert the lifeguards. I am seriously exploring building a real time video monitoring tool to alert potential drowning risks. I have the tech chops (video processing + image detection) and would be happy to collaborate if someone wants to join.

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#379

Post by bias_var »

wycy wrote: post #20

It seems like spotting drowning children could be a good use case for computer vision, at least as a backup. The heuristics for a drowning child are pretty marked, but they're hard to spot for humans distracted by lots of other stimuli.

I am seriously considering building this. This can be achieved even by using your smartphone camera. I would be happy if someone wants to contribute.

Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

#380

Post by retsibsi »

fenwick67 wrote: post #260
grawprog wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence why every bird of prey ever shown in any movie ever has the call of a red tailed hawk.

And every jungle is full of kookaburras

Hah, have you got an example of this one? It's a very distinctive sound so it would be hilarious to hear it over a shot of some obviously non-Australian jungle.
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