Drowning doesn't look like drowning

[JohnO]

I tend to post very little on here. But it's springtime and it's time to repost this article (Don't know if it's been posted this year yet but I didn't see it)

Be alert out there folks. (Read the original article (with links intact) at the link at the bottom)


Drowning doesn't look like drowning
Memorial Day weekend has arrived, marking the start of a fun-filled swimming season for kids and parents alike. Last summer, Mario Vittone dispelled a popular myth about a preventable risk: drowning. The original piece is reprinted below.

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The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine; what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not 10 feet away, their 9-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”

How did this captain know—from 50 feet away—what the father couldn’t recognize from just 10? Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response—so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the No. 2 cause of accidental death in children, ages 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents)—of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In some of those drownings, the adult will actually watch the child do it, having no idea it is happening.* Drowning does not look like drowning—Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene magazine, described the Instinctive Drowning Response like this:

1.“Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs.
2.Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3.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.
4.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.
5.From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.”
This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble—they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the Instinctive Drowning Response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long—but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:

•Head low in the water, mouth at water level
•Head tilted back with mouth open
•Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
•Eyes closed
•Hair over forehead or eyes
•Not using legs—vertical
•Hyperventilating or gasping
•Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
•Trying to roll over on the back
•Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder
So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK—don’t be too sure. 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. One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you all right?” 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.

(See a video of the Instinctive Drowning Response.)

This article is reprinted from Mario Vittone’s blog. Join him on Facebook.

Correction, June 5, 2013: This article originally cited a CDC statistic in referring to the number of child drownings in which a nearby adult watches the child with no idea a drowning is occurring. According to the CDC's Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, no CDC studies have measured the number of such occurrences. The reference has been removed

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... n_the.html

[GXPWeasel]

A good reminder, especially for the new boaters. I've run into a situation similar to this a few years ago. Idiot jumped out of a boat (with no life jacket) after a rubber ball. The wind was blowing about 20mph that day, and needless to say, the kid couldn't keep up with the ball. I kept an eye on him, and as soon as I noticed that he quit swimming, and how far away from his boat he was, I high tailed it to him (as fast as my toon could go). By the time we got to the kid, he was exhausted, and couldn't even talk, let alone yell and wave his arms for help. Dad jumped in immediately to help, and get him in our boat. Then we took him back to his. Could have been a bad day for him, especially if nobody was around, and people were waiting for him to yell for help. The 2 girls he was with on the boat he jumped off of, had no idea he was so exhausted, and therefore, probably would have let him drown (unintentionally).

[HandymanHerb]

And post some more, your almost to a 1000

[NonHyphenAmerican]

Thanks for posting this JohnO.

As a Boy Scout, and then again as a Special Olympics Program Director, I've responded to situations just like this one.

No outward signs, just drowning.

Fortunately in both instances, they survived.

Once in 1977 though, we didn't find her until three days later, two miles down river.

It's very important to be careful out there while we're all having fun.

[tuned]

I love this write up. I saved it a couple years ago and now I post it every spring on the Safety page of the Corporate website. They just love this kind of stuff.

[Shipfaced]

Thanks for this. I would have never known.

[wed]

The description is accurate. When the boys were young we had the youth group over for a swim party. There were several of the kids who were either very weak swimmers and one girl who was a non-swimmer. That group of kids were given clear instructions to stay in the shallower end of the pool...to not go past the rope in the middle of the pool. It was still deep enough to drown but they could still touch the bottom. Anyway, as kids go they always push the limit and I was watching them closely. The non-swimmer got to the point where the slope fell away and very quietly got in over her head. I was standing next to the pool and did not realize she was in trouble until i saw her eyes. No splashing, mouth clamped shut, face up and panic in her eyes and sinking.

I jumped in and pulled her out. She gave me a big hug before she let go. No one else had any clue what was going on.