I imagine computer vision is surely the most logical solution to this problem.
Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
301–310 of 394 posts
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's a terrible practice, wholly ineffective, and neighboring on pathological to instill terror into your staff at the prospect of losing a child. There are many better, more effective ways to ensure you're not going to lose a kid. We did things like count children before/after each activity, run drills at regular (not weekly) intervals, etc. We also had games where kids were left to run in the forest for mul…
> I think it's a terrible practice, wholly ineffective, and neighboring on pathological to instill terror into your staff The point of drills that simulate reality effectively is to get you comfortable enough with taking the necessary actions at the required times that you will not have terror instilled in you. This is why armies around the world all do 'live fire' exeercise and so on, and why companies run BAU or DR…
I know why a drill happens. I also know why they don't actually burn down buildings during fire drills.
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was 11, I had just discovered I could kind-of swim and somehow decided to try swimming across a rather large lake. By the time I realized that was a dumb idea, I was halfway across. I collapsed from exhaustion and threw up several times after I (somehow) got across.
When I was a teenager I was in Boy Scouts. Every year we went to a summer camp that was on the edge of a large pond [1]. And one of the strictest rules there was that you were not allowed in the water until you'd passed the swimming competency test (and you had to pass it again every single year), and the main swimming test was that you had to swim laps in their roped-off section of the lake without pausing until you…
Man, BSA lifeguard was rigorous as hell. It was the only legitimately serious course that the camp offered, and it was not for beginners. I failed it the first year, and it taught me a lot about the difference between "can swim" and "competent swimmer."
They later changed it to a gimme course because of "hazing" complaints, which I thought was awful.
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a teenager I was in Boy Scouts. Every year we went to a summer camp that was on the edge of a large pond [1]. And one of the strictest rules there was that you were not allowed in the water until you'd passed the swimming competency test (and you had to pass it again every single year), and the main swimming test was that you had to swim laps in their roped-off section of the lake without pausing until you…
Man, BSA lifeguard was rigorous as hell. It was the only legitimately serious course that the camp offered, and it was not for beginners. I failed it the first year, and it taught me a lot about the difference between "can swim" and "competent swimmer." They later changed it to a gimme course because of "hazing" complaints, which I thought was awful.
I didn't even consider trying the lifeguarding merit badge for the first couple of years. I doubt I could have done it back then.
> They later changed it to a gimme course
That sucks. I'm also kind of surprised to hear that, because BSA does not usually skimp on safety, and anyone with the lifeguarding merit badge should be capable of actually saving someone's life.
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#305Earlier 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.
I lifeguarded throughout high school and college, and it always surprised me that most of the difficulties I had were with parents/adults. For the most part, kids would give a sullen look and then listen. My only memorable troubles were the occasional adults who would just flat-out ignore or contradict rules, no matter how many times you told them (I always assumed because they thought they knew better than a ~15 yea…
I (obviously) wasn't there but it sounds like you did the right thing.
At the end of the day you were the one sitting in the chair and had to make a judgement call based on your training and observations.
Think of this way - if you hadn't reacted as you did and the girl ended up injured or dead, how much worse would you feel today?
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#306In general drowning is a poorly understood phenomenon among the general population. Portrayals in film and TV contribute much to many misconceptions. While there has been considerable attention paid to the fact that the act of drowning doesn't "look" like the film/TV stereotype, less focus has been placed on the sequalae of a drowning event. The alveoli, which are the functional units of our lungs where gas exchange…
This deserves more attention.
tl;dr is that if someone almost drowned or inhaled some water, they need to go to the ER immediately even if they seem better afterwards.
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a young child, my local pool allowed kids to play on large floating foam rafts (like this, but half the length: http://goo.gl/7Y4HbU ). One day I decided to show off my underwater swimming skills to a girl I fancied. After a long swim underwater, I exhausted my breath and came to resurface for air, only to get caught under a stacked pile of 5 of these rafts, with kids standing on top like in that photo! I…
Once we did rafting and our monitor guy told us: when you fall into the water and find yourself under the boat, just don't panic. Don't try to move your head up but rather chose whatever direction and swim until you reach the either side. We thought it would never happen, but we ended up few times in the water just like just like that. And even though it's just a few seconds you are quite disoriented and at first tim…
Sounds like an easy thing to practice? Go to a pool with a boat, dive under the boat, and practice getting out.
Like people who do kayaking practice how to get out when the kayak turns upside down.
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was 11, I had just discovered I could kind-of swim and somehow decided to try swimming across a rather large lake. By the time I realized that was a dumb idea, I was halfway across. I collapsed from exhaustion and threw up several times after I (somehow) got across.
When I was a teenager I was in Boy Scouts. Every year we went to a summer camp that was on the edge of a large pond [1]. And one of the strictest rules there was that you were not allowed in the water until you'd passed the swimming competency test (and you had to pass it again every single year), and the main swimming test was that you had to swim laps in their roped-off section of the lake without pausing until you…
Ah, I got to do some military training involving jumping into a pool with weapons, armor, and helmet. Swimming in boots is hard.
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Watching "it" happen. the drowning
Sorry, I am not a native speaker. German. Will fix the comment, so everyone can ease off again...
Sorry, I didn't mean to start a grammar war. It was just something that stood out as a bit strange, the meaning was understood fine though.
Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anthropic fallacy. It seems like you are assuming a human is or will always be better than another solution. There may be solutions that are vastly superior to a human lifeguard.
We have some pretty good machine learning tech out there, but I'd reckon we're quite a ways off from the proposed startup focusing on replacing lifeguards with computers even at spotting functionality, let alone the other functions necessary (retrieval, resuscitation iff actually necessary, etc.). Sure, someday we'll have robots do everything for us. We're not quite there yet.
A rectangular pool with a flat bottom (probably accounts for the majority of pool volume world-wide) would be pretty easy to have full camera coverage over with minimal image distortion. Each object could be easily tracked for time underwater, depth, etc. (and expanded to track fine motion as well) Objects that stay near the bottom are suspect. The system could alert lifeguards to the exact location of a victim.
You could even have an auto-drain feature if you desired.