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Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

spotthedrowningchild.com

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Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#331

Post by [deleted] »

myth_buster wrote: post #163
jacalata wrote: post #119

This didn't seem to do anything for me. I clicked on the kid I thought was in trouble and the video just paused. When I continued the video, I saw that I had in fact chosen the right kid, but I didn't see any way to interact with it at all, or acknowledgement if I had the right kid, etc. Windows 8, Chrome, ???

The tool is not interactive. It's purpose is to see whether you can spot the kid. If not, then you can re-run the video and look at the symptoms and familiarize with it. You can play other videos and try at spotting. The primary takeaway is that it's incredibly difficult to know when someone is drowning and this helps you understand that and be attentive next time you are near a water body.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#332

Post by reagency »

myth_buster wrote: post #163
jacalata wrote: post #119

This didn't seem to do anything for me. I clicked on the kid I thought was in trouble and the video just paused. When I continued the video, I saw that I had in fact chosen the right kid, but I didn't see any way to interact with it at all, or acknowledgement if I had the right kid, etc. Windows 8, Chrome, ???

The tool is not interactive. It's purpose is to see whether you can spot the kid. If not, then you can re-run the video and look at the symptoms and familiarize with it. You can play other videos and try at spotting. The primary takeaway is that it's incredibly difficult to know when someone is drowning and this helps you understand that and be attentive next time you are near a water body.

If the site is working on your browser, you can click on an invisible div over the video, and get text feedback about the location of the drowned.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#333

Post by reagency »

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?

You are correct. A kid drowning in a wave pool looks different from a mostly-able swimmer drowning from fatigue.

The chosen video sample doesn't match the catchy text.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#335

Post by eridius »

nja wrote: post #329
eridius wrote: post #297

Earlier 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…

Curious: what camp in New England?

Honestly, it's been so long, I forget. I actually did a bit of searching when I wrote that to see if I could find the camp, but I had no luck. It looks like the Boy Scout Council my troop was a member of has changed what summer camp they use in the many years since I was last there, and I can't actually find any reference to what the name of the old camp was.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#336

Post by nemo44x »

TheAnimus wrote: post #245
TheGRS wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A summer camp I went to when I was younger was very heavily focused on swimming and water craft. We had 3 different colored bands to indicate your swimming ability. Red if you couldn't swim well, yellow if you were OK, but not enough for the deep end and green for the deep end. The counselors tested and trained the kids to go up the color bands, which was pretty neat, but I realize now that it was also a way to keep…

I would have been a blue band in your system. My parents moved to Cornwall when I was child, surrounded on 3 sides by water, I gained my surf lifesaving certificate, I was a good swimmer. Almost two decades passes. I'm in Bali, on a deserted beach with my ex because we "don't want the average experience" or whatever. A small argument and I decide I want a swim. I walk out through the surf, my mind overcome with thoug…

The real shame is you went on a beautiful vacation and ended up in an argument with your spouse. I hope you don't resent your spouse for getting up and leaving, especially since you put yourself in the position to swim while not mindful of your environment.

Also, a back-float is always generally a good strategy in salt water conditions when you've lost control or strength to swim. You carry over common waves and it takes very little energy.

Honestly, it sounds like you panicked.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#337

Post by nemo44x »

If you're ever in a situation where you've lost control and especially if you're in sea water (salty) I recommend learning to back float. It uses little energy, allows you to breath and honestly you shouldn't enter the ocean at any reasonably deep depth without knowing how to do this.

It works because you are on your back which is broad, you fill your lungs with air which give you buoyancy and it buys you a lot of time to regain energy to swim towards safety. Even in multi-foot wave conditions you can position yourself perpendicular to the shore, head towards the sea and you raise up and down with the currents, much like a surf board does in that position.

I've used this many times while snorkeling and short on breath in water far over my head, for instance.

This does not protect you from sharks.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#338

Post by Rebelgecko »

maxerickson wrote: post #173
astalwick wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised. This is in Canada, not sure about the US. Deaths per 100,000 people (drowning), Canada, 2006-2010: 0-4: 1.1 5-12: 0.6 13-17: 0.9 18-24: 2.2 24-34: 1.6 34-49: 1.4 50-64: 1.7 65+: 1.6 I don't have the source handy, but I'll try to dig it up. Edit: Source - http://www.lifesavingsociety.com/media/157475/2013-cdndrowni...

The gadget here puts the overall US rate at 1.07 in 2013 http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html I did 18-24, it says 1.18. 24-34, 0.98. 5-12, 0.49. I wonder what factors into the differences. I'm sure things like number of guarded facilities, number of swimmers and amount of swim classes are important, it's the specific differences that would be interesting.

If you go year by year it looks like the rate goes up from 17-20, then after 21 starts to decrease. Somewhere else on the CDC's website they say that "alcohol use is involved in up to 70% of deaths associated with water recreation", which seems pretty consistent with that.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#339

Post by jacquesm »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #298
Nadya wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well your first link reads like media extrapolating a nationwide trend from next to nothing, and only really talks about the danger of doing it to yourself. The second link doesn't mention timing except the standard 'five minutes' thing, while holding your breath for two minutes is probably going to lead to somewhere between 60 and 0 seconds of oxygen deprivation. So I'm still unsure where the risk of dying comes fro…

> ask somebody physically stronger to "help" you to keep the plastic bag over you head to make sure that you make the time

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#340

Post by Jugurtha »

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 just commented on this on Twitter..

My first comment was asking why most of the people were in those rubber things. If most of them can't swim, it is really dangerous for it calls for a high level of alertness on the life-guard part when the people shouldn't be there in the first place. And no, that's not really the job of the life-guard to watch over all of those.

That's like putting someone to watch over a large number of drunk people moving around and having fun in a porcelain shop and make sure none of them breaks anything.

A person unable to swim simply doesn't belong in a swimming pool deep enough that she can drown. She should be the exception rather than the norm.

I may seem dramatic, but this is really a bad thing waiting to happen. And it's already happening. If you couldn't spot the kids in that cluster-mess, that's bad news.

In my opinion, those who don't know yet how to swim should be in a pool of an appropriate depth. This is why you have different pools for swimmers and non-swimmers, or one pool with a gradient of depths.

Also the people responsible for the kid.. if the kid will be in the water unattended, the top priority is to make sure he's comfortable in the water (how to float, how to relax, etc).

Nobody should drown in a darn swimming pool! It's a darn swimming pool!

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