Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning | Hacker News Reader

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

mariovittone.com

127 pointsTomte74 comments

Just thinking about this terrifies me...

When I was 18 I was effectively drowning at sea after (stupidly) swimming out to a bouy (100m from shore) with my friends. I had a panic attack on the way back for some reason and immediately lost control of my movement and voice -- I basically went into autopilot, though I was aware of what was happening. I thought I was flailing around but in hindsight I think I must have looked quite calm above the water, with my arms and legs moving like crazy under the water. In reality I was doing something akin to doggy-paddle, swallowing water in vast amounts and barely catching a breath. I couldn't raise my arms to wave for help and I tried screaming to my friends who I could see 20m or so in front of me. In my head I was screaming as loud as I could but all that came out of my mouth was a barely audible squeak. Somehow I managed to finally get out a cry for help between gulps of water and one of my friends turned round to come and get me. Even when he finally reached me I still wasn't safe as I had zero control over my limbs so he basically had to swim with my body weight and his combined, 50m or so back to the shore. I remember a couple of moments where he said that I was dragging him under and I was petrified that we wouldn't be able to make it back together (at this point no one else know what was happening). Fortunately he's a very strong swimmer and we made it back without any physical damage. I was so exhausted that I couldn't walk for quite some time afterward, nor speak much really.

It remains the single most frightening moment of my life by far and I am 100% certain that I would have died that day had my friend not have turned around to see what I was doing. I've never swum in the sea since out of a combination of respect and pure fear of what can happen. I am ok with enclosed pools though as I'm comfortable knowing that I have something nearby to hold onto and other people around to notice things.

If you feel uncomfortable with a swim at sea then just don't do it. It's not worth it!

I remember once I was swimming across a lake with a friend in high school and part way through I felt just so exhausted. Like, my arms and legs just didn't want to work.

It's a bit different of a feeling than when you're tired while running or wrestling (the two sports I played in HS) -- it's like you just cannot move. Even in those sports I never felt as dead as I did trying to swim across the lake.

It probably wasn't as scary as your experience, but it was absolutely terrifying, especially since -- like you said -- above water you seem fine, but under you're frantically swimming trying to stay above water.

That sounds very similar to what I experienced, it was exactly like my limbs went dead and just didn't want to move properly, even though I was telling them to. Practically zero deliberate control. Glad you got yourself out of it ok though! It's a horrible thing to have to experience.

Uh-huh. Scary stuff. Glad you made it out too! :)

I almost drowned once in a public swimming pool. I was kicked in the diaphragm by an inconsiderate swimmer while turning and lost my breath, started the typical drowning response.

The worst part about it was that I was only a meter or two from the edge of the pool, but for the life of me, I just could not orient myself to move forward and grab it. All my body was capable of was splashing my arms on top of the water and thrashing my legs to bob up and down vertically and get my breath. Thankfully, pools aren't too deep and I eventually managed to regain my senses, drop to the bottom and push off to the wall.

I was an older teenager at the time, so maybe I had a few more wits about me than younger kids, but it's surprising how little it takes to drown.

> All my body was capable of was splashing my arms on top of the water and thrashing my legs to bob up and down vertically and get my breath.

Yeah but this article is about how drowning doesn't look like that at all

Uh, that's literally exactly how the article describes it.

> Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.

> Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

> Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water: ... Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder.

> Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck.

Also see http://spotthedrowningchild.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFjm7cQX5rA

It felt like the lifeguard was weirdly too quick, like she was already on the lookout for that kid. As soon as the kid flipped over at :12 she started moving and she jumped in 3 seconds later.

That link really stressed me out.

There was another that came to mind that I couldn't find which was a full screen drowning simulator. That was incredibly stressful.

Edit: I think this was it (can't verify) : http://sortieenmer.com/?lang=en

No kidding. The longer I took the more I felt like someone was actually going to drown. I eventually clicked the right kid after like 20 seconds, but I wasn't even positive when I clicked.

Interesting, just reading about it, or seeing the videos, make me fell uncomfortable. Guess that must be some research about this "empathy" somewhere.

Saw that some time ago and by coincidence I had a girl almost drowing in a pool a couple month later. Was too far to help but managed to draw a lifeguard attention to her (it was one of those wery crowded wavey pools).

That gamified training website should be spread to everyone and possibly even part of some high school collateral.

I almost drowned in the ocean. Yeah it didn't look like drowning. It would have looked like someone bobbing up and down, maybe diving to look under water. There were people on the beach sunbathing and playing, they didn't notice. My wife saw and understood what was happening and yelled for help. So she saved my life.

I lifeguarded a beach with quite big waves for a few summers. It's really hard to see people swimming in the sea, especially when they go out past the waves. We used to call people back in if they looked like they weren't strong sea swimmers. It makes you feel bad stopping people having fun in the sea. But that job used to scare the shit out of me. So easy to lose sight of someone.

I don't know what happened to you, but I suspect a combination of the effort of swimming in moving water, it's much more effort than in a pool. Coupled with the constant slapping of chop in your face meaning you need to really lift your head up high to breathe... yeah... it's scary. Glad you got out ok.

Worst part of that job was when you count the kids, 4 in that group, 5 in that group ... now there's only 3 in that group. Where did that other person go?

It's strange to me that the job of a lifeguard is entrusted to teenagers across USA, where I'm sure most of them do not receive any rigorous training in matters like these and the majority of them do not look like they'd be strong enough to save a person anyway.

At no point have they made me feel safer for being there, unless they're doing it as their full time job.

I think they are doing quite a good job considering the vigilance it takes. The beach near me has mostly teenagers lifeguarding, and there has been 30k rescues over the years, with zero deaths while lifeguards were on duty. I do not hear of many drownings anywhere with lifeguards on.

Teenagers have better vision and are typically in better shape.

Lifeguards are sort of a courtesy.

You should be the first one responsible for your own safety when going out swimming.

I used to swim in rivers with no supervision, and obviously I needed to be very careful not to get myself into a situation.

I don't think many ocean swimmers know how dangerous the ocean is (to judge from people's accounts here and other times this issue has come up). So many people might not be able to be responsible in the way you suggest.

I wonder if there's sometimes a risk compensation problem from the presence of lifeguards -- forms of "I don't need to be so careful, the lifeguard would save me".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard (less directly applicable, but kinda)

You've been downvoted, not sure why. But this is true. Lifeguards mainly tell people not to go in where it is dangerous.

Like I said in my previous comment, if you get into trouble it is very hard to see you let alone get out to you and save the day. You are responsible for your own safety.

We used to red flag the beach (no one in the water apart from local surfers) then at the end of the day take the flags down and get ready to go home. Every time some idiot would go in for a swim... as if the flag was the thing that made the sea dangerous.

If you go in the sea, be prepared.

My friends who were lifeguards received pretty thorough training, I think.

The certificate takes 6 months of study and includes a full first aid education, as well as water-specific first aid, what does drowning look like, how to swim against a rip tide, how to tow someone who is either dead weight or thrashing or larger than yourself. They have to be able to swim 1 km with a time limit. They have frequent training drills and go for refresher courses every year or two. And the pay is quite a bit better than normal kid jobs pay. Think 10-12 per hour for a grocery store or fast food job, and 17-19 per hour for lifeguarding.

I only know two or three friends who have done it, but they are fairly impressive people, to me. I can't speak for all lifeguards of course, but I always felt pretty happy with the supervision of my 17 year old friend Michelle, for example, when the 6 kids in my care at summer camp were splashing in the lake.

It's beyond trivial to search the web for the requirements to be a certified lifeguard in the US.

Saving someone who is drowning isn't about strength, it's about technique.

Lifeguarding isn't taken seriously in America. Go to Australia, there are lifesaving clubs all over the place, kids join them and learn this stuff early on.

Same in the UK, we have kids learning about the sea and rescue at 7 years old. By 16 they are fit, strong and qualified.

But 99% of the job is prevention.

I imagine it depends on the pool and beach area. Most notably, the older management staff that overlook the lifeguards.

Anectdotal, but I was a lifeguard in my Highschool years nearly 2 decades ago. Scrawny at 5'9 140 lbs. However, we spent a lot of time training and practicing rescuing people. We made sure all our staff could individually rescue someone that is 250 lbs+ across the pool, tread water holding bricks over our heads and swim respectably fast, trained how to scan the pool so that there are overlapping eyes and no blind spots on each area. We were all CPR certified (however we deemed the lifeguarding a failure if you've already needed to resort to CPR due to drowning). We spent hours practicing loading a victim with a spinal injury in water onto a backboard (spinal backboard procedures), and even had EMS stop by to train us on first aid. Refreshers on procedures and training were done quarterly.

When not at the side of the pool, we're cleaning bathrooms. Good times for minimum wage. Even saved a couple of kids that wandered too far off into the deep end during summer. No one even noticed they were drowning.

I hope at least some of this provides you with some trust to your local lifeguards even if they are young.

Perhaps I was just uninformed.

If those are indeed requirements even for part time lifeguards, then it makes me feel much safer.

At my local pool in the UK they are picked from the swimming team. When I was in the team (many moons ago) we were doing 60 laps for a warm up. That's about a mile. So they are good, strong swimmers.

Interestingly CPR success rate is really low (around 20% I seem to remember.) We're all told that. After a couple of breaths into the patient, if they don't start coughing up water and sit up, then you're not likely to save them. So the qualifications don't matter so much as speed, strength and attention.

What I wonder is, if you don't have any control over your own movements anymore, how likely are you to also drown the person that is trying to save you? Is that something that can happen?

Yes, very likely.

You'll notice that lifeguards usually approach from behind the person that needs rescue. The standard response is to grab anything that can help the drowning person stay afloat, which includes the rescuer.

Quite likely. I nearly drowned once at sea and my friend came out to get me but I kept dragging him under because I literally had no energy left to do anything, let alone the brain power to coordinate my movements. Fortunately he was a very strong swimmer and so we made it back in one piece.

From what I've read, it can be common practice to punch the drowning person to stun them and stop flailing limbs.

I was taught to grab a handful anywhere (excepting the elbow), and pinch hard. Drowning is bad enough without adding a concussion to it, and possibly injuring your own hand.

Heh, not trying to knock them unconscious with a blow to the head, but to surprise them (like pinching would).

The simplest way to get a drowning person off you is to go down. With your arms at your sides, push up, like the reverse of when you're trying to lunge out of the water. As soon as the drowning person's head goes below water they will let go and you can come back for another attempt.

Don't punch them, it's less effective and can knock them unconscious, which can complicate the rescue.

Source: was a trained and certified lifeguard and swim teacher in my teens.

Better source than mine, listen to this guy!

Likely. The person who saved me, was yelling at me to turn around with the back towards them so me flailing and grabbing them won't pull them down. I could hear them, yet I could not do what they were telling me. It happened eventually, but yeah I imagine it would be a problem.

Yes. I just finished Rescue Diver certification and there's a whole section on what to do when confronted with a panicked diver. Generally speaking, when people panic, they won't listen to instructions, will do nonsensical things (like not inflate their BCD which would keep them afloat) and try to use anything and anyone as an island to keep themselves up. There's a bunch of techniques we're trained on but in general, you should approach them from behind and be prepared to kick off in order to save yourself if they come after you.

> They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

I feel like we really have the technology available to prevent a lot of drowning. Maybe it's a sensor worn on the head that can send off an alarm after being submerged for x seconds.

Maybe a drone or fixed cameras running computer vision algorithms.

Those are just some example solutions. I'm sure you could come up with more after giving it some thought. I just would like to see something like this.

Or if nothing else how about public service ads that educate people what to look out for.

We have lifeguards. Less sexy (well, in a strictly technology-enthusiastic context), but proven in use.

The comments in this thread would suggest otherwise though.

Life guards are a lot like teachers, the ratio of eyeballs to swimmers matters. A 100 to 1 ratio is impossible for any one person to track.

This is like trying to do services monitoring by just looking for service time-outs - seems intuitive but lots of false positives and by the time you observe it the disaster is in motion. A watchdog timer or deadman's switch is used in a lot of services as an alternative but would be a UX problem since it would require a form of active participation by the users. On the other hand, Disneyland had some success with tracking devices of sorts by branding them right as something beneficial to parents as well as children, so this barrier may be easy to overcome.

I'm also curious if computer vision algorithms could help with anomaly detection scenarios like this when the automatic response is so universal and there might be a large body of videos and photos of such events to help train machine learning algorithms upon.

Technology could help "flag" swimmers for human inspection (lifeguards, in this case). But any "timeout-based" approach is a no-go. I used to be able to go underwater for about 3 minutes (less depending on exertion), while I doubt my mom would be able to hold her breath for more than 10 seconds before starting to drown.

Something like those battery powered Finger Pulse Oximeters that doctors use comes to mind; they use light to measure oxygen levels and heart rate, and they're super cheap at $10-$30.

Lots of pools have such systems, e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poseidon_drowning_detection_...

It's a straightforward but very meaningful application of computer vision.

Having almost drowned due to a leg cramp in a crowded pool with a lifeguard just about 4 feet away from me, I can tell you that drowning most definitely does not look like drowning. Especially, when it is a proud/embarrassed teenage who doesn't want to have to be saved in front of a crowd. No one noticed and I made it out on my own, but it could have gone another way very easily.

I am eternally grateful to a properly trained triathalon course observer who saw the signs and rescued me.

I was halfway through the swim portion (first segment) of a triathalon that required wetsuits. Coming from warmer climes, I didn't own one so I was fitted for a tri-suit at a pro shop two days before the event. I trained a few times with it in a gym pool to get used to it, and I thought everything was good for race day.

But it turned out it was slightly too tight, and I could not quite inhale sufficiently. Half-way across the Delaware river I remember remarking to myself that the waves were crashing over me; I was spending more time swimming under water than on the surface.

I wasn't terrified, I just felt really weird. It wouldn't make sense - all this training and I can't keep my head above the water?

I don't remember passing out, but an observer was watching me from a kayak, and he hauled me to a rescue launch. I hadn't inhaled any water, all they had to do was yank open the zipper on my suit.

I guess I turned from blue back to pink and everybody had a good laugh, but I couldn't thank that observer in the kayak enough.

I take a moment every now and then to thank those people who are trained and vigilant, standing station and ready to save us when we least expect it.

My sister almost drowned as a 2-year-old kid. She was standing on the bottom of a 5ft pool. From above the surface, she looked like somebody just standing there, seemingly without being in distress. Other people in the swimming pool were making the usual noise, so everything seemed normal. Fortunately, my mom discovered her in time and she alerted me to get her out of the water.

For "______ doesn't look like (Hollywood) ______"

See also choking, childbirth, and many others

this is a fun game. Let me think.

hypnotism, sex, knockout punches, and computer hacking too

Taking a bullet.

The naked human body.

Also, New York apartments.

Most blows to head. Arya Stark took enough abuse this Sunday to break every bone in her face and probably kill her. But she just kept getting back up. Pretty tough, those TV folks.

Love, war, running a business.

Hell I bet making a movie doesn't look like making a movie.

Once I went out snorkeling and had a hard time getting back because of the current. I exhausted all my energy trying to fight the current and was really running out of breath while panicking. Even though I had a snorkel, I was afraid I was going to drown since I was really pushing the limit of how fast you can breath through that tube. Fortunately I regained some presence of mind to just relax a little until I calm down and then try a slightly different route.

Since this story had significant attention less than a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237), this repost counts as a duplicate.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Yeah. Thought it was a metaphor for startups. Also see: http://spotthedrowningchild.com/

I'm sorry, I thought it had been much longer and didn't check.

Not specifically about drowning, but here are some notes on ocean safety when near the shore.

- Never turn your back to the ocean. You see tourists doing this all the time to pose for pictures, only to get walloped by a wave. This is especially dangerous when venturing out onto rocks or piers.[1]

- Waves come in sets. About every 7th-10th wave can be much bigger than the other waves. So you may mistakenly think yourself safe near the shore if you base yourself on the last few waves you've seen.

- One cubic meter of water weighs one ton, so even a smallish wave contains a lot of energy.

- When swimming, watch out for "shorebreak" or waves that break right on the beach. These can pile-drive you right onto the bottom and knock you out or even break your neck.[2]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwwGtU_MlYY [2]" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv1hQXCVxDw

Neary drowned aged 4 in a lake.

I can vividly remember seeing rusty bikes and other things at the bottom of the lake, yet I cannot remember anything about the person that dived and saved my life.

Best advice I can give you - never turn your back on your children near water. It may sound obvious, but it only takes a split second and they are gone.

Here's the video they mention in the article advanced to the point of the drowning response: https://youtu.be/X1mVcSUttX4?t=38s

Can any recommend a good video of article about this to post on Facebook and such?

This one is good but I don't think it would work for all the people I know with short attention spans and limited ability to read multiple long paragraphs.

As lfowles pointed out elsewhere in comments, a portion of this was turned into a game

http://spotthedrowningchild.com/

which still has some of the same text, but with heightened drama and motivation.

Almost drowned in a sea as a kid with my whole family on the beach (none could tell anything was wrong), on the bright side learned to swim dog style on the spot.

This is from 2010... Useful info, but the post has definitely made its rounds.

Great read and I've passed it on, it may come in useful for me or someone I know some day. Just want to ask a few questions: 1-What triggers this response? Are you just swimming casually when all of a sudden this kicks in? 2-For those who have experienced drowning, what stopped you from swimming normally? I've always been a good swimmer and hardly ever had problems in the water. There was one year when I was 9 in a wave pool in Rhodes, there were no more Rubber Rings so I swam in, I was out of my depth and I got hit by a wave I miss timed, and couldn't correct my timing so I started to panic realising I was about to drown, luckily a woman close by saw this and pulled me up...drowning scares the hell out of me.

I'm interested in this as well.

I have had a few very close calls, but never had the drowning response, even when severely out of breath and panicking.

> 3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. [...]

> 4. [...] Physiologically, drowning people [...] cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, [...]

Hmm.

Re-worded in a less ambiguous way: "cannot stop drowning to perform voluntary movements such as waving for help".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality

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