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How to know when someone is in trouble in the water

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

#81

Post by EvanKelly »

pjungwir wrote: post #57
mikeryan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approach a drowning person from behind and hold them above the water by their armpits Unless you're a trained lifeguard this is poor advice. As stated above you don't want to get within touching/grabbing distance of a drowning person. Get some sort of intermediary between you and them, a stick, rope, shirt, pants whatever. Something that you can drop if you are at risk. To the point below about their instincts of not…

When I was in Boy Scouts they said if a drowning person was pushing you under, you should dive to make them let go. Anyone with experience know if that works?

More specifically, lifeguards are taught to turn their heads (so the chin is over the shoulder) and push up on the victim. This makes the victim feel safer by getting them further out of the water, and puts some distance between you and the victim.

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

#84

Post by dspeyer »

JoelSutherland wrote: post #60
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.)

You're using chrome on windows right? The linked URL is their mobile site and the text container has been 3dtransformed forcing grayscale antialiasing which Chrome does poorly. Check it out on Firefox or IE and you'll see what I mean. It will look much better on a mobile device as well. If you drop "mobile." from the url you'll get their normal desktop site which also has much better type in Windows Chrome.

I'm using Firefox.

I do have some ambient light. Maybe if I replaced the curtains in my window with true blackout curtains this would look ok.

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

#85

Post by tomsaffell »

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…

I can offer some advice on swift-water river safety.

1. avoid swimming in moving water unless you know it and everything downstream of it very well

2. if you're boating (canoe, tube, etc) on swift moving water always wear a personal flotation device. no exceptions.(a)

3. if you find yourself in moving water, swim lateral to the flow - never upstream

4. the safest orientation of your body is lying on your back, feet downstream (though this isnt the most effective for moving laterally, so this is best used through rapids, for example)

5. swimming across eddylines can be difficult. the easiest way is to do a torpedo stroke, which is like an alternating front crawl stoke / back stroke, with your body rotating around its long axis with each stroke. I would link to a video of it, but I cant find one...

a) - i've swum in tame swift-water in downtown Denver w/o a PFD, and I've swum (accidentally) in raging swift-water with a PFD. The former was far more unpleasant, and resulted in more swallowed water.

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

#86

Post by gmrple »

EvanKelly wrote: post #80
gmrple wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most lifeguards that I know are trained not to jump in after a drowning victim EVER unless they have a strong floatation device--the lifeguard tube. Supposedly most of the larger ones should be able to support 5 people. Drowning victims are so dangerous that even people who are trained can run into issues.

We do active drowning victim training in which we lose our floatation device. Part of our training includes freeing ourselves from the victim. I've personally never had a victim panic when I got close to the point of endangering me. We're basically taught to poke them with the tube until they grab on. You're right though, the safety of the rescuer always comes first.

It depends on the group certifying you. The two that I know are common in my area (Chicago) are Red Cross and Ellis and Associates (EA). I worked for a group that did EA, thus why most of the lifeguards I know are trained not to touch victims without tubes (I actually was a trainer for Starfish Aquatics, which was kind of a spit of EA).

I know Red Cross teaches releases, I think EA might have a small paragraph in the book devoted to it, but a large section on the importance of the lifeguard tube.

I've saved > 10 kids over the years I guarded and never had an issue with grabby victims, but 90% of my victims were kids in 5ft of water. I did have a coworker get grabbed in a 12ft diving well once though. Thankfully she was able to get free.

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

#87

Post by qrybam »

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…

Ditto. I remember my drowning in a swimming pool very vividly. I was around 9 at the time, couldn't swim and was sitting on one of those foam floats. A friend of mine (he didn't know about my lack of swimming ability) pushed me off the float right in the middle of the deep end. This is where the article's description really hits home with me:

1. I wasn't able to stay afloat in my vertical position (as described)

2. I tried to scream for help, but ended up with a mouth full of chlorine water each time

3. No adults/kids were reacting to me at all

4. I accepted (3) and decided to take matters into my own hands

5. Took the biggest breath I could (wasn't very big), stuck my head underwater, opened my eyes and "swam" as hard as I could to the edge of the pool ... I blacked out on the way

6. An adult found me unconscious underwater, holding onto the side of the pool, blue in the face

7. CPR

8. I'm here to tell the tale \o/

(edit: formatting)

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

roc wrote: post #44
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 c…

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by ComputerGuru »

This is an excellent article, it was posted around 3 years ago from the original source and there was some great discussion at the time, revolving around some of the questions and opinions currently being discussed here in the comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835

It's good to see it resurface, definitely one of the more memorable articles I've ever read.

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