That said, I can't spot anything nearly as fast as the guards do. And the I replay the video, knowing just who to watch and sometimes I'm surprised at how long they've been in the water when the guard finds them.
I can't really see the "ladder climbing" referenced elsewhere, but the style of "swimming" that goes on during drowning does stand out after you've seen a few. There were a few times where I thought the person was still swimming at first, especially the kids trying to swim back to their tube and failing, but even then you can sort of see a change in their behavior when instinct takes over and their body just starts jerking around.
EDIT: Here's a good example of what I mean. Watch how their swimming suddenly changes when they start drowning and their arms begin thrashing. I actually found this one before the guard whistled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXFgOBjk860
I agree about the tube flips. It was almost always a kid in a tube that leans over too far and then gets dumped out. Once I knew what to look for, I usually saw it about a second or two before the lifeguard. I was very focused, and it helps to know that the drowning is going to occur in the next few seconds. I would be very stressed out working as life guard, having to do this search all day for real!
In a couple of videos, the victim was a parent with child that left their tube and was struggling to both swim and hold their child above water. There was one tricky case where two people were swimming to get the same tube, and the one who got there second, thus losing the tube, started drowning. I was surprised that this person could switch from swimming to drowning so quickly.
It was also scary to see people in the pool next to the drowning victims not react at all. Validated the article.
Rescuing active drowning victims (this kind of drowning) is very dangerous, for that reason. The victim won't just hold you, they'll climb you. And keep climbing until their head and shoulders are out of the water. Because your combined bodies have finite buoyancy this means you go down. The victim doesn't have to be big to push you under. It is nothing to do with strength at all, and nothing to do with how strong a swimmer you are. I defy any strong swimmer to tread water for more than a couple of seconds with a 6 year old on their shoulders.
So a lifeguard without a flotation device has to approach victims very differently. Normally from behind, where they can't be climbed. Their aim is to get the victims head only just above the water. The victim is panicked, and won't like that one bit. Some of the rescues in the video aren't that great for that reason: the lifeguard doesn't keep the buoy between them and the victim, putting them one slip of the buoy away from a possible double drowning.
I've heard LGTIs tell students that in extreme cases they should wait for the victim to go passive (lose consciousness) before a rescue, if they can't approach safely. I'd never teach that, because it is unnecessarily callous and easy to misinterpret. But as a rescuer you do have to be prepared to swim down to get the victim to release you. Being safe around a drowning person is hard, and most lifeguard trainees massively overrate their swimming power in that situation. That's why there are so many multiple drownings.
> I was surprised that this person could switch from swimming to drowning so quickly.
That's a really good point. It is surprising how folks you mark as being 'okay swimmers' can change immediately something goes wrong. I think it is the power of that instinct. I don't know how many people gradually get into difficulty, then begin drowning. It's rare, I think. More common something in their brain switches from 'in control' to 'panic' and the body takes over.
My only save as a lifeguard was a double for this very reason: the drowning kid's older brother jumped in to save him, and they both went under as the younger one scrambled for air.
"Good thing I jumped in after you, huh?" said the older brother, after I dragged them to the side. I wanted to punch him.
I had my eye on him so much I was afraid I was going to miss the "real" victim and I had to force myself to keep scanning :/ Just as bad.
There's one were a few people thought the guard was too fast--they went in immediately after someone flipped their tube and went down head first. But I've seen enough of the other videos to recognize the fact that they really were drowning at that point.
I just thought that one video was a good example of how everything changes once someone starts drowning, because it wasn't a tube flip or anything like that. It was just someone who had a few waves knock them under and cause their instincts to switch on and you can see exactly where the transition occurs and they go from swimming (if struggling) to drowning.