In the Netherlands, children learn early to swim in their clothes and shoes because of the risk of falling in a canal.
Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
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Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
The lay on your back technique works for those who it works for, and it should absolutely be taught to everyone just so that whoever it works for knows about it and uses it when they find themselves in a situation when it could save their life. Less drowning in calm waters is a net positive. But there is a percentage of the population who can’t simply float. Some of us literally sink if we don’t swim. One time my fri…
A bit of air in your lungs will make you more buoyant.
True, but it doesn't help staying afloat. If I lay on my back, my feet and legs will sink first.
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#393When I was 12, I went on a week long hike as a scout. We decided to swim across a lake, and 1/2 way through, I got tired, and tried swimming back, but couldn't. I remember having the presence of mind to yell out help before blanking out. My closest friend in the troop luckily turned around, swam back to and drug me back to shore. I was scared of the water after that, but some how ended up fighting my fear and earning…
As a passable but not amazing swimmer I tried to swim not too far from an anchored boat to the beach while carrying my 1.5 year-old, and it was fine for the first 30–50 meters until he freaked out and started flailing his limbs in a way that made it really hard for me to keep his head above water while also keeping us both afloat and moving forward.
Thankfully some other people were also going from boat to shore with us, on a raft, and were close enough that I could shout at them to come pick us up.
I don’t plan on ever trying that again!
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#394In the Netherlands, children learn early to swim in their clothes and shoes because of the risk of falling in a canal.
Yep. For anyone curious: "Diploma A" can be started at age 4. The requirements to finish the exam are:
- Swimming with clothes on after an unexpected fall into the water, able to orient themselves above water and leave the water independently.
- Enter the water in different ways, can orient themselves and proceed to swim through something.
- Can use one or more of the 4 basic strokes (breaststroke, single backstroke, front crawl, back crawl) to swim a base distance
- Can float on his back and stomach. Feels confident in the water.
- Can do water steps(?) with arms and legs, can turn and orient themselves.
- Bath clothes
- Shirt/Crew neck with long sleeves
- Long pants, dress or skirt (reaches the ankle)
- Shoes (plastic/leather/sports)
Diploma A is the first of the three diplomas (ABC). If you have all of those you meet the national swimming safety standard.
More reading: https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/nationale-zwemdiplomas/zwem-...
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are paralympic swimmers with no arms or legs who can swim a length faster than me, and I'm a competent swimmer. I wouldn't worry about your foot size.
I parsed that on first read as "no (arms or legs)" instead of "(no arms) || (no legs)" and was very surprised!
Your first read was correct, there's a guy with no limbs and he's surprisingly fast!
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#396I never got to properly thank the 15-yo lifeguard who saved my 7-yo from certain drowning in a crowded artificial lake pool. We turned away for what only seemed a minute and he was going under. He was slightly blue in the face when the life guard brought him out. The weird thing is he didn't fight or flail. He just sort of faded away into the water, and it struck me as especially weird that he didn't seemed scared at…
I had never thought about it before where Aussie shows get shown in other countries. Over here it's usually reruns on 10 BOLD
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does that work?
Let's say you roll a dice with 100 sides. If you roll a 1, you die. If you roll anything else, you live. We want to know the probability you will die if you roll the dice 100 times. One way we could do this is look at the probability you'll roll it on the first roll... then the probability you won't roll it on the first roll but you will on the second roll... and so on. But that's a lot of math. The probability of an…
Clear and concise. Thanks!
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kind of intuition do you have about 1%-2%? I've a crappy grasp of probability. I'd say 1-2% is like being quite certain that you'll experience this or that within 50-100 tries/repetitions. That sounds rare to me. In case of life or death it's not a risk I'd tolerate, but I'd call it rare.
Right, but I'm not going to nearly-drown 50-100 times in my life. I'd definitely put this in the "not worth worrying about" category. Being a human and doing human activities carries a certain amount of risk. If we over-analyze things we end up either being too scared to do anything interesting... and if we start applying this "I"m scared of everything" mentality to parenting we fall into the "helicopter parent" trap…
Being scared of being scared is also a thing. If water got into my loved one's lungs, I wouldn't take a 1-2% risk of them suffocating in their sleep. I only gamble with what I'm willing to lose.
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#399When I was 12, I went on a week long hike as a scout. We decided to swim across a lake, and 1/2 way through, I got tired, and tried swimming back, but couldn't. I remember having the presence of mind to yell out help before blanking out. My closest friend in the troop luckily turned around, swam back to and drug me back to shore. I was scared of the water after that, but some how ended up fighting my fear and earning…
I want to commen just to make sure it's incredibly clear to never take your eyes off your kids around a pool. My youngest child nearly drowned in 2 feet of water with a ton of adults around. I never take my eyes off my kids around water now. It's too easy for something terrible to happen.
Not just the kids.
I was paddling with my 3 year old daughter by the shore while my 9 year old was playing with his cousin futher up the beach (and in front of the lifeguard station).
My father-in-law (late 60's) wanted to join the two 9 year olds who had swam a short distance to a sandbar, and were in knee depth water.
The old man got into difficulty, I dropped my daughter back with the family and asked my wife to have a look at her old man.
She said he was fine, he's been swimming here for years.
I recognised the pattern of short quick breaths and short quick movements. Each small wave was sapping energy from him.
I ran to help and reached him quickly. People nearby had recognised the danger but were too afraid of stepping out of their depth to help a stranger. Ultimately, nobody on the crowded beach was prepared to take any risk to themselves to help (which I can understand).
On arrival, I realised I did not know what to do. I held him above the water for a few seconds, which meant submerging myself for the same duration. He was now a dead-weight, who had lost all control. I repeated this twice more, until I felt there was a risk to my own safety.
I swam/dragged/paddled/crawled with one arm the short (12 meters) to shore. I was close to becoming exhausted myself.
Later that night over a bbq, the family asked why he simply did not turn around. The time between tiring, and panicking/exhausting he said was too short, and he was so close to reaching the sandbar.
My wife did not believe he had been in danger until that chat over the bbq.
He is alive today because one member of the family recognise the signs of drowning. Being inclose proximity to the lifeguard station which was manned, had no bearing on the outcome.
Re: Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does that work?
Let's say you roll a dice with 100 sides. If you roll a 1, you die. If you roll anything else, you live. We want to know the probability you will die if you roll the dice 100 times. One way we could do this is look at the probability you'll roll it on the first roll... then the probability you won't roll it on the first roll but you will on the second roll... and so on. But that's a lot of math. The probability of an…
Counter question. How to calculate how many tries it would take to reach a specific probability for an outcome? For example, how many times do I have to roll the dice to have 90% chance of death? Due to my field of work, I'd solve everything by bruteforce, but I wonder what a more elegant solution could be.