Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

mobile.slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 119 posts

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#41

Post by hluska »

chrisa wrote: post #15
hluska wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious...let's say that you see someone drowning, you aren't a trained lifeguard, and there aren't any lifeguards around. Could an untrained person rescue that person safely? Any tips?

Try to rescue from afar first - throw a life ring, or anything they can grab on to. If you must do an in person rescue, always approach from the back. If you come from the front, they'll use you as a "ladder" and climb on you, making it impossible for you to swim.

Thanks for your answer - I felt sick when I read that article and realized that in some emergency situations, I'd have absolutely no idea what to do. Having a drowning person climb on me sounds like a nightmare...not as big of a nightmare as watching someone I care about drown, but still, it sounds very scary...

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#42

Post by crescentfresh »

kaoD wrote: post #18

I can confirm the article. Almost drowned once in a river: I let myself go with the current and, once I tried swimming back, realized I accidentally went into strong currents. I tried swimming harder, but eventually got tired and sunk. Despite my friends being about 20/30 meters away from me, they didn't realize I was drowning. I couldn't scream for help nor do anything but trying to stick my head out and breathe. I…

Glad you made it. I had a similar experience, in strong currents. It was a long time ago but I cannot think of it without my heart racing and panicking all over again.

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#43

Post by pdonis »

mikeryan wrote: post #24

Another bit that makes drowning deceptive is that most of the time the victim will be in relatively shallow water or fairly close to the edge of the pool. If you can't swim its usually hard to get out to deep/open water (unless in a beach break) so a lot of kids that struggle will do so within a foot or two of being able to reach a wall or shallow enough water to stand up in.

Which brings up the obvious advice: if you're going to take your kids to the beach, or to the pool, teach them how to swim! Teach them young enough that they haven't yet developed an instinctive fear of water; then they'll be natural swimmers for life. (I learned to swim at about age 6 months.) If you can't teach them yourself, find a program at the local pool or rec center.

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#44

Post by roc »

nsxwolf wrote: post #33

A video would be helpful. I'm not confident I could recognize all those signs from the descriptions.

Only lifeguards need to be able to spot it at 50'. And they'll get training.

For everyone else: you only need to spot the silence. People in water make noise and move. If anyone isn't doing that, talk to them. You don't have to say "hey, are you drowning?" just "hi" or strike up some small talk.

If they aren't responding and don't seem to be doing anything but bobbing along with their mouth barely above water, that continued silence is what should urge you into further action.

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#46

Post by cfn »

This happened to me once in a pool and until I read an article like this I didn't even know I was drowning. I was 5 or 6 and was in a swimming class. I remember going up and down and not being able to say anything or do anything but that. I don't think anyone noticed me but I may be wrong. What saved me was that the pool bottom was slanted so every time I went down I touched it just a bit but enough to push me slowly to the shallower end.

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#47

Post by Arjuna »

In addition to the point of this piece, please read the following for comprehensive guidelines with regard to water safety:

http://www.redcross.org/prepare/disaster/water-safety

For those heading to the beach, please be aware of the rip current phenomenon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current‎

http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#48

Post by Filligree »

ivank wrote: post #37
dspeyer wrote: post #16

color: rgb(102,102,102) Seriously? Why do so many publishers make their content so hard to read? (Once I fixed that with inspectElement, the article was good.)

I'm guessing this happens when a designer has a bright LCD screen and thinks black on white has too much contrast.

Which is often the case. Reading pure-black on pure-white hurts my eyes, so I often have to tune this knob the other way.

The actual problem is the lack of a brightness-controlled colorspace.

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#49

Post by paul_f »

hluska wrote: post #5
parfe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A drowning person will endanger his rescuer by instinctively climbing onto the highest point available (the rescuer's head). If you see someone drowning, alert a lifeguard if possible. Depending on the situation, the proper action might require the rescuer to counter intuitively drag the person under water. On the other hand, if no life guard is present, don't just let someone drown, but saving them is a risk. source…

Just curious...let's say that you see someone drowning, you aren't a trained lifeguard, and there aren't any lifeguards around. Could an untrained person rescue that person safely? Any tips?

One thing we were taught is to pull them by their hair.

Re: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

#50

Post by jholman »

antoko wrote: post #31
clarkmoody wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had water rescue training. I read the article as well. Parent comment was addressing a drowning person victimizing the rescuer, which also seems to contradict the article.

You're right - I'm making assumptions when imagining the situations described in my head and jumping to unfair conclusions about your point. When I imagine a person in the water trying to help it seems obvious that if you're next to them in the water they will clamber on to you and do whatever they can to keep their mouth out of the water to breathe. When I image holding some object out for them to grab it seems the…

Yeah, though it's not even about forcing them to be aware of it. Like you quoted from the article, "cannot voluntarily control their arm movements".

So the question is, what's the Override Software doing with their arms? It's climbing a ladder, it's scrambling up a vine, it's hauling the body onto a boulder. If there's no ladder/vine/boulder, it's a shitty strategy, and they'll drown pretty soon.

If there's a rescuer in reach, like a foot from them, they'll climb the rescuer, unconsciously. If they drown the rescuer, they gain a minute of life, then they drown themselves. So that's bad for everyone.

If there's a life-saving device where they have to think about it and grab it, they cannot. Not will not, but cannot. But if the life-saving device arranges to be grabbed, they climb it. That's actually useful! If it floats, they can climb it and not-drown. If it's a rope, as they climb it, you can pull them to safety.

So, again. You can't count on the cooperation of the drowning victim, and it's not because they're "stupid" or something, it's because they're not people right now. But you can count on their body doing certain things.

Post reply on HN