Hacker News Reader

Comment by ender7 | Hacker News Reader

Beware: it is very dangerous to attempt to rescue a full-grown person who is drowning. A person who is drowning has temporarily lost their mind and will happily drown their would-be rescuer in an attempt to stay above the water. Approach a drowning person from behind and hold them above the water by their armpits.

View on HN

Approach a drowning person from behind and hold them above the water by their armpits

Unless you're a trained lifeguard this is poor advice. As stated above you don't want to get within touching/grabbing distance of a drowning person. Get some sort of intermediary between you and them, a stick, rope, shirt, pants whatever. Something that you can drop if you are at risk.

To the point below about their instincts of not grabbing it. Don't leave it out where they need to reach for it. Hit them in the head or arms with the stick or piece of clothing and they'll grab it. My first few pool rescues with a lifebouy I'd leave it within their grasp and they'd not grab it. If I hit them in the head or hands with it they'd grab it every time.

I had a lady next to me start to drown and grab me in a pool when I was getting my diving certification. Despite having a supply of air, wetsuit, fins and buoyancy control device on, she got that drowning sensation when her respirator came out. Once she had someone to hold onto, sanity was restored but I totally got why drowning people are dangerous from then on.

I used to teach scuba, and people would occasionally freak out and grab me as if they were trying to drown me. I wasn't too concerned about my own safety in those cases, because years of play in the ocean had taught me not to panic when unexpectedly shoved underwater. You always have some air in your lungs. Stay calm, and it will give you the time you need (unless you're in extreme conditions).

Just swim down when you are grabbed. If you kick and thrash to try to raise yourself to get your head above the water, they will feel you raising them up and try to climb on top of you for safety. So you shovel water with your arms to push yourself farther down, pulling them down just enough that their heads go underwater, too, and they'll release you quickly. They are struggling desperately to keep their heads above water and won't hang on to something that's pulling them under. Your head is already underwater, so it won't hurt you to go a little deeper, but if you panic and try to fight toward the surface, they might hold you under until it's too late for you. Go down.

Once they release, you push back out of reach, get your air at the surface, and figure out how to help them.

The biggest issue I had during initial training was the mask leak/loss/purge drill. From what I recall, it's a side-effect of the Diving Reflex[1] that cold water on the face (and nose especially) makes it quite difficult to keep breathing, even when you have a perfectly functional regulator in the mouth. It gets better with practice, but it's terrifying the first time, when you want to breathe, and your body is trying to stop you.

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

Wow... whoever this person is, I sincerely hope they were not certified (in that attempt). This person is almost guaranteed to lose it at the first minor hassle (say getting wrapped in kelp) underwater.

Most lifeguards that I know are trained not to jump in after a drowning victim EVER unless they have a strong floatation device--the lifeguard tube. Supposedly most of the larger ones should be able to support 5 people. Drowning victims are so dangerous that even people who are trained can run into issues.

We do active drowning victim training in which we lose our floatation device. Part of our training includes freeing ourselves from the victim. I've personally never had a victim panic when I got close to the point of endangering me. We're basically taught to poke them with the tube until they grab on.

You're right though, the safety of the rescuer always comes first.

It depends on the group certifying you. The two that I know are common in my area (Chicago) are Red Cross and Ellis and Associates (EA). I worked for a group that did EA, thus why most of the lifeguards I know are trained not to touch victims without tubes (I actually was a trainer for Starfish Aquatics, which was kind of a spit of EA).

I know Red Cross teaches releases, I think EA might have a small paragraph in the book devoted to it, but a large section on the importance of the lifeguard tube.

I've saved > 10 kids over the years I guarded and never had an issue with grabby victims, but 90% of my victims were kids in 5ft of water. I did have a coworker get grabbed in a 12ft diving well once though. Thankfully she was able to get free.

I had something like that, too.

The worst part was we were supposed to look the other way and have them come up behind us and tackle us in the water. The worst part was having a 300 lbs old guy doing who isn't a fan of making it easy.

There's this myth that in the early days lifeguards were trained to literally punch victims in the nose to knock them out - or bring them back to themselves - to facilitate rescue.

When I was in Boy Scouts they said if a drowning person was pushing you under, you should dive to make them let go. Anyone with experience know if that works?

Yes, see my comment elsewhere on this page. I've done it more than once, and it always worked like a charm. Desperate people will try to get on top of you if you are floating; they'll drop you if you are dragging them under. I've always been larger than the people panicking, so I can't be sure a small person could drag a larger person under, but if your head is already under, trying to go deeper is your only viable option. If you try to come up, you'll have to lift them, and they'll stay on top of you.

More specifically, lifeguards are taught to turn their heads (so the chin is over the shoulder) and push up on the victim. This makes the victim feel safer by getting them further out of the water, and puts some distance between you and the victim.

Red Cross lifesaving taught me a similar technique: approach the drowner from behind and underwater. You go under the water and feel your way up from his legs to the back of his thorax staying in contact. When you get to the surface you cross an arm over one shoulder and under the other and pull the drowner backward into a prone position face up. Surprisingly, once you've got a hold on someone in the water its easy to stay behind them no matter how they move.

I never gave much thought to the effect this might have in open water if the drowner did not see you approaching - suddenly something underwater is grabbing him and controlling his movement - Jaws!8-))

Your best bet is to knock them unconscious, them pull them safely to shore. It's safer for both of you.

Edit: actually perhaps not the best idea.

Is it really such a bad idea? If you have no other option, and they are going to die, risking brain injury seems worth it.

Knocking someone unconscious while swimming sounds difficult. I have a hard time imagining a situation where your energy is best spent punching the drowning person rather than trying to drag them ashore.

Knocking someone unconscious isn't exactly easy or reliable, especially when you're both in the water. If you really want them to pass out, you might as well start pushing them under water (or wait until they loose consciousness from drowning) or choking them.

Knocking them out isn't a great idea, but (many years ago) in lifeguard training I was taught that waiting for the victim to go unconscious, if you couldn't safely deal with them, was preferable to having two drowning victims.

First rule of rescue: your own safety first. Not only does that minimise the casualties, but if you're injured or dead you can't help others anyway

Better yet, get a stick or rope and pull them to safety. They will grab onto whatever is within their grasp.

did you mean to contradict the article or did you not even read it?

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.

Both the article and the previous commenter are correct. People in late stages of drowning can't swim toward you, but they certainly will grasp on to you when you reach out to rescue them. If this happens, the rescuer will frequently submerge himself and use their legs and arms to forcefully push away from the victim before reengaging from behind. (Source: I was an ocean lifeguard for seven years in high school and college and have experienced this)

Was waiting for someone to say this. They (Surf life saving Australia) teach the same here. I've only ever been involved in board or IRB rescues in real life but the old sea dogs say that it works wonders if they do grab into you: drop like a stone because the last thing a drowning person wants is to be attached to a person who is going under the water given their desperate struggle to keep their head up

They won't reach out for it, but if it happens to be within their reach they'll grab it.

I've had water rescue training. I read the article as well.

Parent comment was addressing a drowning person victimizing the rescuer, which also seems to contradict the article.

You're right - I'm making assumptions when imagining the situations described in my head and jumping to unfair conclusions about your point.

When I imagine a person in the water trying to help it seems obvious that if you're next to them in the water they will clamber on to you and do whatever they can to keep their mouth out of the water to breathe.

When I image holding some object out for them to grab it seems the greater chance is that they wont be aware of the object, or unable to reach the object.

However a rescuer with actual knowledge would be aware of the situation and would ensure they physically touch them with the object so they have to be aware of it.

Yeah, though it's not even about forcing them to be aware of it. Like you quoted from the article, "cannot voluntarily control their arm movements".

So the question is, what's the Override Software doing with their arms? It's climbing a ladder, it's scrambling up a vine, it's hauling the body onto a boulder. If there's no ladder/vine/boulder, it's a shitty strategy, and they'll drown pretty soon.

If there's a rescuer in reach, like a foot from them, they'll climb the rescuer, unconsciously. If they drown the rescuer, they gain a minute of life, then they drown themselves. So that's bad for everyone.

If there's a life-saving device where they have to think about it and grab it, they cannot. Not will not, but cannot. But if the life-saving device arranges to be grabbed, they climb it. That's actually useful! If it floats, they can climb it and not-drown. If it's a rope, as they climb it, you can pull them to safety.

So, again. You can't count on the cooperation of the drowning victim, and it's not because they're "stupid" or something, it's because they're not people right now. But you can count on their body doing certain things.

As a reasonably strong swimmer with no life saving experience - giving or receiving - this conversation is pretty fascinating, especially the casual nature experienced rescuers are saying things such as

> they're not people right now

This strikes me as an incredibly interesting concept. I wonder what other situations arise semi-frequently where participants temporarily abandon their people-ness? Has this notion been legally tested? If in a state of non-people-ness I drown my rescuer yet then survive, have I committed murder?

It's this kind of random tangent into conversations where knowledgeable people frankly discuss things I had never even imagined that I love about HN (and, to a lesser extent, reddit). FFS, I have a swimming pool downstairs. This conversation has made me realise I have no idea how to save someone I see drowning in it - if I can even identify they are drowning. I'm glad I'm reading it.

While I have lots of training as a rescuer (which motivated my previous comment), I actually have zero working experience.

Life-saving training is interesting and cheap (I believe it's subsidized by non-profits)! I recommend it! The Red Cross is one good organization. And note that they offer training specifically for pool owners (though I'm guessing you don't own the pool, merely rent in the same building or something).

In the moral sense? No, clearly you have not committed murder.

In the legal sense? Um. That would get interesting. I imagine that if the court knows what happened, the answer would be 'no', but if no-one there knows this kind of thing might happen (including you) you might have a problem.

   You're right - I'm making assumptions when imagining the situations described in my head and jumping to unfair conclusions about your point.

Holy crap, it might be that recognizing mistakes this clearly happens a lot and I just haven't seen it, but I must say this is the first time I've seen it happen so clearly like this on... Well, on the internet!

Kudos for this.

If the drowning person puts you in danger, because he/she clings too tight and there's a risk that both of you will drown, the solution is to punch or even break their nose to cause a shock so that the person lets go. Or pull/push him/her under water and wait until they are unconscious and then attempt to rescue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com