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Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

spotthedrowningchild.com

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Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#281

Post by StavrosK »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #90
DominikPeters wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"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.

What about dogs? It always seems to me too "cutesy" to refer to my dog as "she", but too cold and impersonal to say "it".

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#282

Post by StavrosK »

Kluny wrote: post #174
AlphaGeekZulu wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I am not a native speaker. German. Will fix the comment, so everyone can ease off again...

You're doing well, it was just someone being a grammar stickler for no good reason.

Or someone correcting him so he can learn better.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#283

Post by Dylan16807 »

jacquesm wrote: post #233
trhway wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just hold your breath for couple minutes (or even better - ask somebody physically stronger to "help" you to keep the plastic bag over you head to make sure that you make the time :) and i think you'll learn the difference. There is an extremely huge biological difference between "panic" and "fun/excitement". Specifically to drowning there is also oxygen blood content difference - harder to detect from outside, yet a…

> just hold your breath for couple minutes (or even better - ask somebody physically stronger to "help" you to keep the plastic bag over you head to make sure that you make the time :) and i think you'll learn the difference. That could easily kill someone, this is totally crazy advice.

It could? I mean it's obviously a terrible idea, but how is forcing someone to hold a full breath for two minutes going to cause them actual major harm? Can oxygen levels actually drop dangerously low that fast? People can hold their breath for that long with barely any setup or practice. Plus having a plastic bag to breathe in and out of should remove a lot of the discomfort and panic since mechanically you're still breathing.

Again, not saying it's a good idea, but the idea that it would kill someone suggests that I'm missing something I should know.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#284

Post by brc »

mangeletti wrote: post #276
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…

I don't mean any disrespect, and I do agree with the point about "encourages them to go deeper...", but I think "any flotation device" "besides a life jacket" is a little bit hardcore. We can't make everything 100% fool proof and 100% safe in every way without removing all activities. Parents need to pay attention to their kids' swimming abilities and govern their activities accordingly. If a kid can't swim really we…

The issue is with the parents, who just want to let the kid in the pool so they can go back to their phone.

I do volunteer work with my local surf live saving club, looking after the kids in the under 7 program. It is exhausting work standing in the surf watching 30-40 kids at once. Most parents see it as a child-minding surface and are content to sit way up on the beach with a coffee and a phone.

The point is the parents - in many if not the majority of cases - don't pay attention to their kids swimming abilities.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#285

Post by brc »

hashmymustache wrote: post #120
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…

The biggest danger seems to be parents who let their children swim before they know how.

Yes.

They conflate 'can swim across shallow pool' with 'johnny can swim now, so I can relax'.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#286

Post by irishcoffee »

mangeletti wrote: post #276
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…

I don't mean any disrespect, and I do agree with the point about "encourages them to go deeper...", but I think "any flotation device" "besides a life jacket" is a little bit hardcore. We can't make everything 100% fool proof and 100% safe in every way without removing all activities. Parents need to pay attention to their kids' swimming abilities and govern their activities accordingly. If a kid can't swim really we…

So I'll admit, I didn't set the rules, I enforced them. I agreed with them, but I was not the rule-setter.

I'll also say that I could find ~1000 families who are probably devastated every year, most likely any marriage that existed was challenged, and possibly broken up. Lives changed forever. Why? So some kid who can't swim could float in 6 feet of water for a few minutes.

Yes it is on parents as well. I am a parent. Fortunately I can swim well. I am not the parent that takes their child to the kiddie pool, and while I'm in the middle of a sneeze, my child takes off and jumps feet-first into the "big" pool, and I can't do anything to save them because I can't swim.

I'll agree 100% that the parents that showed up at my pool and took a 2 hour nap, those were bad parents. I woke them up when their child was misbehaving, and sometimes just because I was severely annoyed.. My guards were guards, not baby-sitters.

Perhaps my child is hanging out with friends, and one of the friends parents takes them all to the community pool. I'm not there. Is is still on me as a parent?

I understand and appreciate your comment. Life just isn't that simple sometimes.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#287

Post by Nadya »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #283
jacquesm wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just hold your breath for couple minutes (or even better - ask somebody physically stronger to "help" you to keep the plastic bag over you head to make sure that you make the time :) and i think you'll learn the difference. That could easily kill someone, this is totally crazy advice.

It could? I mean it's obviously a terrible idea, but how is forcing someone to hold a full breath for two minutes going to cause them actual major harm? Can oxygen levels actually drop dangerously low that fast? People can hold their breath for that long with barely any setup or practice. Plus having a plastic bag to breathe in and out of should remove a lot of the discomfort and panic since mechanically you're still…

Very similar to blackout. [0] Depriving the brain of oxygen, in general, is a terrible idea and yes it can kill you.

Regardless if it is in a semi-controlled setting and if the intent isn't to continue until you black out but only until you begin breathing in a panic it's still very dangerous. [1]

[0] http://www.today.com/parents/kids-are-passing-out-deadly-hig...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_hypoxia

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#288

Post by tajen »

RaleyField wrote: post #219
rbshadel wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as an aside - there's actually multiple videos (not sure how many), so you can play repeatedly

27. Videos are hosted on youtube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/LifeguardRescue11/videos ), so you can easily watch them in sequence.

For me, the second video was different but it kept repeating, so after 6 tries I quit. Also, it's impossible to navigate back to a sequence of the video, so I couldn't train to see when the child started to go wrong. There's also no link to Youtube. And finally on the iPad the background is black and the video is black and doesn't start, so I really wondered what the website was about at the beginning. Typical example of how doing less design and not removing Youtube's default controls would have helped. The rest of the website is a great idea implemented with talent, despite the details I teport.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#289

Post by aylons »

ntoronto wrote: post #105
aylons wrote: post #75

I may sound arrogant, but I'm being honest and trying to avoid my biases. What am I missing here? These drownings looked exactly what I expected from a drowning: someone going up and down the water, splashing in a disordered manner, unable to swim or to keep the head out of the water. What do people usually expect drowning to look like? Am I missing some detail that should make drowning more evident to me?

> What do people usually expect drowning to look like? Head erect, more splashing, perhaps a cry for help, and above all, someone who thinks and acts like a human being. You can't tell from the site, but a drowning swimmer is a wild animal. If you have to approach at all, approach with extreme caution and with something to extend your reach. It may be you aren't surprised because the premise of the site is to identif…

> It may be you aren't surprised because the premise of the site is to identify people who are drowning. You know it'll be happening within a minute or so. In real life, it'll happen with small probability in the next few hours. It's a lot harder to spot under those circumstances.

Oh, I don't claim that spotting a real drowning in real life will be easy, or even in the video: lots of attention and searching is needed and the lifeguard there does an impressive job. I was only wondering about the drowning behaviour itself.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#290

Post by brc »

sandworm101 wrote: post #170
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…

Totally depends on the situation. Grabbing a small kid in two-foot-deep water isn't dangerous. They latch on and you walk away with them. Grabbing a 200lb man thrashing after falling off a boat ... get some equipment. Fyi, the same rules apply when rescuing people from cliffs or other high places. Don't ever "throw them a rope". Don't approach until ready. They will latch onto anything nearby even if that means them…

If said man has a life jacket on, grab the shoulders, push him under as far as you can go, then pull up. The buoyancy of the life jacket will provide additional momentum for pulling into the boat (assuming low sides)
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