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Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning

611 points by msg 16y ago

btilly 16y ago
To this should be added some information for would-be rescuers of drowning people. The instinctive drowning response is a climbing response. What you see are twin splashes as the person's arms flail wide looking for something to grab on to. If they find it the automatic response is to grab it, climb up, and stand on top. The person doing this is panicked and has massively more strength than you think. If you are swimming and a young child does that to you, you will go under water. If you panic, you will get the same reflex, and will drown yourself. Therefore if you wish to rescue someone who is drowning, you have 4 basic options. 1. The most common response is to go to them and try to rescue directly. If the water is shallow enough that you can stand, letting them climb up you can be OK. Otherwise this is suicide. Frequently one drowning leads to multiple others, and this is exactly how they get started. 2. Keep your distance and hand them something to climb on. They can't see a pole to grab it, but if they touch, they will climb, which gives them air. 3. Wait until the drowning person is unconscious. Then go to them and tow them in. If you can't stand in the water, and don't have anything to do 2) with, this is recommended. 4. (For trained people only.) Swim up behind them, grab them from where they can't grab you, and lift them up to get air. Talk soothingly to them until they relax, and then tow them in. If they get hold of you, DIVE so they let go, back off, circle around, and start again. If you do not have lifeguard training then I strongly recommend against trying #4. Unless you know how to do the eggbeater you won't know how to hold them out of water. And if they grab you, you have surprisingly little time to make the correct response before you are drowning as well. Oh yes, and another data point. Drowning is the #1 cause of death in toddlers. It is quiet. It is fast. Beware of the backyard pool.
- dgabriel 16y ago
  My now 8yo, then 3yo, almost drowned in a hotel pool while I was swimming just a couple of yards away from him. I reached him in seconds, and his reaction was to scale me like a tree, at which point I flung him onto the concrete. He had some scrapes and bruises, but he was alive. I'm not a trained rescue professional, and I didn't know any of this information before you posted it. It's kind of amazing to look back and see how textbook his response was (and how terrifyingly unprepared I was).
- drx 16y ago
  This is incredibly useful information, thank you for posting it. In emergency situations (like drowning) I tend to try to rescue people who might be in danger (as long as it's safe, of course). This I did not know and it could have had dire consequences for me.
- superk 16y ago
  In regard to 3... How do you know when the drowning person is unconscious... that would be when they dip under and don't come back up? They're lungs would be full of water then? So you would have to swim down to them, pull them to dry land (they won't float) and resuscitate them? I understand sometimes that could be the only option... but seems like a heavy responsibility.
  - kelnos 16y ago
    > but seems like a heavy responsibility. When in a dangerous situation, your first responsibility is to yourself. Rescuing someone else can be risky, and getting yourself into the same situation as the person in trouble helps no one, and increases the burden on any other would-be rescuers, whether professional (lifeguard, fire fighter, etc.) or another Good Samaritan like yourself. But I agree that it seems like waiting for the drowning person to become unconscious dramatically increases the chance that they won't survive. That's gotta be a tough decision to make.
    - deleted 16y ago
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    - Pistos2 16y ago
      [My First Aid training tells me that] although brain death occurs in just a few minutes once the brain ceases to get oxygen supplied to it, if CPR is applied to a casualty, and the casualty can get in an ambulance and into a hospital within an hour or so (the "Golden Hour"), he or she stands a decent chance of surviving. The CPR would provide some oxygen to the brain and the rest of the body (while the ambulance makes its way to the scene), so if you can bring the casualty to shore within 2 or 3 minutes of them going unconscious, there's still reason for optimism. As such, I would say it's not unreasonable to wait for the drowning person to lose consciousness if you aren't confident you could prevent or deal with him or her dragging you down.
      - JshWright 16y ago
        The "Golden Hour" refers to the time it should take to get a trauma patient to a surgical table. The odds of a (non-hypothermic) cardiac arrest patient being viable after an hour are slim to none. However, the good news is that drownings are one of the few times where Hollywood-style CPR "Do a couple rounds and they wake up" can occur. Their heart stopped beating because it stopped getting oxygen, not due to some other type of damage. So if you do CPR for a little while and get their heart oxygenated again, it can start back up in its own (most pools nowadays have an AED as well)
- jakevoytko 16y ago
  "The instinctive drowning response is a climbing response. What you see are twin splashes as the person's arms flail wide looking for something to grab on to. If they find it the automatic response is to grab it, climb up, and stand on top." Reading this, I connected the dots on a childhood experience of mine. When I was very young, I was in a public pool that had a "big" deep end, about 5.5 feet. I couldn't swim, but I still went to the deep end. I sank to the bottom and jumped to the surface to get air, and slowly traveled wherever I wanted to go. All of a sudden, WHAM! I got tackled from behind by a lifeguard and breathed a mouthful of water. He took me out and asked me if I was OK. Between hacking coughs I said I was. My mom brought my towel to me and asked me what I was supposed to say. I yelled and slapped his legs with my towel. I probably got punished for that later. At the time I didn't understand why the lifeguard rescued me. I felt fine, and I was probably about a minute away from the edge of the pool at the rate I moved. But that's exactly what I looked like from the surface - both arms grabbing upwards and sideways to drive me to the surface
- ihartley 16y ago
  It's amazing that there aren't many tools for drowning response, and any new technology recieves major pushback from the ineffective incumbents in the space. Check out http://life-safer.com/ http://life-safer.com/ they make a throwable, bouyant, foam disk that is significantly more effective than anything else available.
- philwelch 16y ago
  I read this comment out loud to my girlfriend, who noted that toddlers sometimes drown by stumbling into a bucket of water. It occurred to me then that instinctive responses are a lot like code--you can hope it'll cover most of the cases most of the time, but so much code I've written does the equivalent of walking into a bucket, falling in head first, and flailing desperately when it reaches an edge case.
- s-phi-nl 16y ago
  While your advice seems researched and correct, the general advice passed down by Boy Scouts is reach, throw, row, go. First, try and reach something out to the victim for him to grab hold of. If that won't work, try to throw something for him to hang on to. If that fails, go to them in some kind of boat (though a surfboard may work too). If, and only if, all those things do not work, swim out to rescue them. [Edit: after having read the article, I realize that this is advice in what to do for someone experiencing aquatic distress, not someone who is drowning. My apologies.
- gjm11 16y ago
  Someone who may or may not be btilly posted exactly the above to Mario Vittone's blog, and got a response from Vittone saying, inter alia, "Your four points contain some good as well as some dangerous advice. There are often too many variables for lists of possible rescue techniques - but waiting for unconsciousness is a very (very) bad idea." (Emphasis mine.)
  - btilly 16y ago
    It was not I who posted that there. I fully agree that waiting for unconsciousness is a very bad idea. Obviously it is an option of last resort. However from my training, I believe it to be a better idea than getting killed. And in my training it was suggested as an option of last resort if we had no other options and didn't feel comfortable making a rescue. And yes, there are a lot of variables that come into play. For example my instructor once saw 3 people drowning in a river. She rescued 2 and let the third drown because she was developing hypothermia. (The story is that one broke through thin ice, the other two tried to rescue the first. The one who died was one of the would-be rescuers.) However in general if you have the knowledge and experience to properly judge those factors for yourself, you should know more about drowning than my brief blog post.
    - jodrellblank 16y ago
      Obviously it is an option of last resort. Not obviously, since you listed it third of four and fourth was roughly "swim where they can't grab you, and drag them back to shore while avoiding their grasp", which sounds pretty straightforward to an untrained reader.
      - btilly 16y ago
        It sounds pretty straightforward when you hear it, but execution is the real challenge. And if you execute it incorrectly, you run a serious risk of death. To give an example of what can go wrong, your description suggests that you just hold the person where they can't reach you and drag them. But if you try that you'll find out the hard way that there is no good way to drag the person while they are still panicking without getting grabbed. To give another problem, can you swim in place for a minute with your hands out of the water? Try it before confidently asserting that you can. And that is substantially easier than swimming in place, holding a struggling, panicked person up. Those are among the reasons why I've so strongly recommended that untrained people avoid option #4. If you can stand on the bottom, fine. Otherwise, not so fine.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  I have been in a position where I felt like I was drowning and I was able to call for help. But I'd agree that if it had been worse, the results might have been as described.
- mrtron 16y ago
  I was a lifeguard in my youth. I am an incredibly good swimmer. I just went white water rafting with a bunch of friends in Malaysia - and on the boat were 2 other folks that were not great swimmers. We were in pretty good rapids, and the odds were for us flipping at some point. We were all wearing lifejackets, but in the rapids at times it feels like you aren't floating much at all. The first patch of rapids another boat flipped and a bunch of people clutched on to each other basically climbing the ladder on each other - we quickly got to them but they all had swallowed a lot of water. I gave a big speech about how if someone is drowning their instinct is to grab you and pull you under - so make sure when helping others you can safely just grab them. A few rapids later we flipped. I quickly grabbed on to the raft and was doing fine - until I saw one of the poor swimmers floating face down drinking a lot of water and heading towards more rapids. I swam over and grabbed on to her, flipped her on her back and told her to relax we were going to be fine. Then we hit some more rough water and all of a sudden she was pushing down on my shoulders and I was under water for about a minute as we passed through rapids and she was struggling to stay on top of me. I outweighed her by 50 pounds and still struggled to get out from under her while being tossed around in the water. I was comfortable for the first 30 seconds or so, but at that point I started to get the whole "Damnit, I am drowning" feeling. I finally separated myself from her, threw up a few times, and then held the top of her lifejacket from a behind. My long winded story is intended to say one thing. If someone is drowning, their natural instinct will be to climb on top of you to get above water. It doesn't matter how much bigger you are - how much better of a swimmer. Even if you are really experienced it can still be difficult to rescue a drowning swimmer.
  - gills 16y ago
    Spot on. I'm sorry to hear about your story but it really nails the point home. I was also a lifeguard and a competitive swimmer in my youth, and realized after some time that the single best training I ever had for escaping an active drowning victim was playing water polo! You really have to think of the victim as an adversary, keep a firm grip, and have practiced being extremely stable in the water to manage it.
    - mrtron 16y ago
- siculars 16y ago
  I recently took the PADI Rescue Diver certification, had been a lifeguard in my youth and currently participate in long distance swimming events (1 - 2 miles) and triathlons. I can tell you that according to the Rescue diving course the correct order of btilly's recommendations would be 2, 1, 4 and possibly 3 (while implementing 4). It should go without saying, but your immediate course of action is to call for help and/or designate someone to do so in case of an actual drowning situation. Your preferred choice of action is to stay out of the water entirely. Do not get in the water unless you must. Use any means at your disposal from lines to poles to thrown floatation devices to safely assist the victim. Keep eyes on the victim, assign someone to do so as well - in case you need to gather emergency equipment (above or swimming aides like mask/fins if they are available and if you are going in). Next would be a wading assist, again, waist/chest deep wade into the water with a line/pole/floatation device. Finally, if you must enter the water remember that YOUR SAFETY is above that of the victim. If you allow the victim to overpower you, you will become a victim yourself. The most powerful tool at your disposal at this stage is your voice. Talk to the victim, reassure them, let them know you are there for them and everything will be ok. Reel them back from the edge of panic. After that, the next powerful tool at your disposal if you are overtaken by a panicked swimmer is to dive and push the victim away from you while under water - the victim will not follow you down. Rinse repeat until the victim calms down, you get a hold on them from behind, or they pass out. Having the victim pass out is not the worst thing that can happen. It may require rescue breaths and/or cpr once you get the victim to shore/boat.
- amalcon 16y ago
  I was always taught to "Reach, Throw, Go": First, try to reach them with a pole or something from outside the water Second, if that doesn't work, throw something that floats like a vest or life preserver. Hope they grab on to it. Only as a last resort, actually swim out to a drowning person. Your objective should be to put the thing you just threw at them in their hands, not to drag them back to safety.
  - guyzero 16y ago
    The complete list is: talk, reach, throw, row, go, tow, carry which lists the things you try and their order in terms of hazard to the lifesaver.
    - sesqu 16y ago
      That's a crappy list. It's long and it mostly rhymes, making it very easy to miss or misplace a stage.
      - guyzero 16y ago
        It rhymes because it's a mnemonic and since we got quizzed on it about a million times I still remember it 25 years later. Seems like a good list to me.
- deleted 16y ago
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- Tamerlin 16y ago
  When I was in lifeguard training, they taught us how to deal with a struggling victim. It was a bit like aikido in the water, except that a panicking victim is probably stronger. The following year they changed the "rules" and the instructor (who was also a teacher in my high school) said that we were now to keep an eye on a struggling victim, and attempt a rescue only after they stopped struggling. I think they'd had too many lifeguards end up in need of rescue themselves when they went after a panicked victim and got yanked underwater.
- nradov 16y ago
  A rescuer just died near Carmel, CA on Sunday. http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_15449083 http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_15449083
patio11 16y ago
The drowning response is also why you are strongly advised to not get into the water to assist a drowning victim and why trained rescuers who do so violently manhandle drowning victims (if you administered similar aid on land it would look like a violent assault featuring a choke-hold delivered from behind). Drowning victims are virtually incapable of cooperation in their own rescue and their panicked struggles have the very real potential of drowning would-be rescuers. I pulled someone out once (in flagrant violation of the above advice) -- my (possibly inaccurate) recollection is that he made no noise whatsoever between entering the water and exiting it beyond the sound of the first splash.
- btilly 16y ago
  When I received lifeguard training 2 dozen years ago, I was taught ways of rescuing people that don't involve the use of force, and the person teaching the class strongly recommended against learning the more violent approaches that were once used. As I recall, her claim was that they were less effective, and carried a significant risk of causing injury.
  - whatusername 16y ago
    Risk of Injury is much better than drowning alongside then.. (But I'm not a lifeguard -- so I'll shutup) // I was somewhat shocked when I did an L2 First Aid course a couple of years back. The Ambulance Officer running the class talked about CPR -- push much harder than you think you should. A couple of broken ribs will heal. A stopped heat beat wont.
    - CWuestefeld 16y ago
      Yes. I was advised by an Army medic that effective CPR will break ribs. Also, you need to blow really hard for the breathing to be effective -- you need to see the chest actually move upwards as a result of your blowing. If you've had CPR training, hopefully you had an opportunity to use a real Resusci-Annie (sp?), which has sensors indicating that your doing both the chest compression and the breathing with sufficient force. That same medic also told me that generally the victim will vomit, probably right into your mouth.
16s 16y ago
It's authoritative knowledge such as this that makes the Internet worthwhile (if you can find it among all the garbage). I had no idea what drowning was like before reading this. Thanks for writing this blog post!
krschultz 16y ago
Ugh, this entire post is lifted from the original source and then a link is posted at the bottom. The person who actually wrote this great article is getting none of the revenue. Go to the original instead at gCaptain.
- chaosmachine 16y ago
  The person who actually wrote the article is Mario Vittone. Looks like he just cross-posted to another site.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Part one of the article is excellent too: http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/cold_water?11198 http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/cold_water?11198 Bunch of stuff I didn't know.
  - mvittone 16y ago
    I appreciate the traffic to either site. I wrote the post on gCaptain almost a year ago - it just never really got any play until now. Links to gCaptain are great. It's a professional site owned by a friend of mine. I'm still active duty Coast Guard so my site doesn't generate revenue. I'm just very glad to get the word out about this important subject. Thanks again everyone!
- carbocation 16y ago
  If you were to look at the byline on the gCaptain article, you'd see it's the same individual who has crossposted it.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    whoops
    - msg 16y ago
      Right. I actually did not spot the gCaptain article, but I did see that the domain and the author matched. Thanks for pointing out the first half though!
charliepark 16y ago
In Boy Scouts, we learned the rhyme "Reach, Throw, Row, Go", regarding the order of assistance to provide. We also learned that if the victim tries to climb you, to submerge a bit (so they let go) and punch him (or her, sure) in the nuts, and to then rescue him.
gcv 16y ago
So when the brain perceives drowning, it basically shuts down and starts doing self-destructive things? The article says that a rescuer being pushed down by someone who is drowning can end up in trouble too — and this is a real risk to a rescuer who normally swims and dives like a fish? I don't mean to sound skeptical, I'd just like a little clarification. I never understood how swimmers can possibly drown unless hypothermic or completely exhausted. If this is the case, then it's horrible that we haven't evolved out of this destructive "drowning response instinct".
- randallsquared 16y ago
  You call it destructive, but it sounds like it's nearly optimum for getting back out of water you just fell into. "Grab the riverbank or a tree; climb up it." That's simple and effective. The only time it causes further problem is when you're on a boat and fall in, or otherwise find yourself suddenly away from the shore.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    Right. I can't swim a lick. Once, while on a solo backpacking trip very much in the middle of nowhere, many tens of miles from the next person, and while navigating a river canyon, I fell into the cold water, well over my head. Somehow my toe touched something on the bottom and I rocketed out of the water like an explosion. The next thing I knew, I was flopped over onto a large rock like a fish, a few feet from where I fell in. I still have no idea exactly how that all happened, but near as I can guess I gave the best leap of my life and scrambled the rest of the way up. I really need to learn how to swim. :-(
    - Tichy 16y ago
      Sign up for a course today, in fact, do it right now, it is probably just a few mouse clicks away?
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Despite a lot of floofy rhetoric, we didn't evolve to spend time in the water. We're land apes with reflexes that try to get us out of the water after we've fallen in.
deleted 16y ago
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- johnfn 16y ago
  I don't think that hacker news has any "topic" that articles must stick to, other than that they pique intellectual curiosity. As for that, I think that this article does well.
whatwhatwhat 16y ago
When I was a child (about 7 years) I nearly drowned at a public swimming pool full of people. My family was there including my mother, smiling at me from all of 5 feet away. After I ran out of air and strength... it was actually my (then 9 year old) brother who saved me. As a child I was simply infuriated with my mother, that she would sit there smiling acting like everything was okay while I was fighting for my life. I guess I know why now. Thanks for this article -- it won't be forgotten.
- ergo98 16y ago
  Same thing happened to me, and it was my older her sister who pulled me out. I can vividly remember looking up and out of the water.
spanktheuser 16y ago
This reminds me of something from scuba certification. After doing all this scary stuff underwater( like taking the regulator out of your mouth, dropping it, then recovering and re-inserting with your eyes closed) one of the last tests was to take off your mask, put it back on, and use your regulator bubbles to blow your mask clear of water. Easy, I thought. You get to keep your regulator in the whole time. So you could literally spend 60 minutes getting this right with absolutely no danger. Frankly, it sounded about as intimidating as washing your hair in the shower. Oh, how wrong I was. Despite the fact that I knew I was perfectly safe, the second my face was immersed in water, I had to fight hard to not panic. I felt waves of fear threatening to engulf me, and it took every ounce of self control not to bolt for the surface (which can injure or kill you). Two other students did bolt for the surface before being grabbed by instructors. I later learned that this is a very common, instinctive reaction. I was amazed at how powerful this reaction was, and gained a newfound respect for the lizard brain.
- lief79 16y ago
  In hindsight, and after taking more advanced courses, it became quite clear that scuba instruction was all about teaching the students how not to panic. I hope they make that clear to the instructors, as I only went for personal instruction.
  - callahad 16y ago
    Cave training places an extremely strong emphasis on controlling panic. In open water, if you bolt to the surface you might get bent, but there are chambers for that. In a cave, you either swim out, or you drown. You don't even have the option of a quick, merciful DCS hit. Keeping a clear head is essential when your own self-rescue is on the line.
    - siculars 16y ago
      I just went for my Cavern Diver Cert and am not ashamed to say I had to withdraw, washout as it were. The odd thing was that the place I was taking the Certification allowed fun divers with only an Open water Cert to dive the caverns (with guides, of course). After my experience, there is absolutely no way I would ever, ever, ever advise anyone to ever go cavern/cave diving without the appropriate instruction and cert level. If for only the reason of exposure to cave(rn) panic inducing situations. It is the lack of exposure that will bring on a massive panic attack at the absolute worst moment that can kill not only the diver, but the entire group. Personally, I had a weighting issue. As in I was too heavy. the instructor told me to use 10% bodyweight + 6 lbs. as the weight. 175 lbs, head to toe 7mm wetsuit, one AL80 tank @ 2500 psi, fresh water - anyone know the algo for figuring weight with these variables? Haven't done my peak performance buoyancy yet... My trim was off, we went over a cliff with an overhang, I was in the process of calling the dive at this point as my trim was positioning me vertically. As soon as I hit vertical my belt slid right off into the 150 ft abyss taking a fin with it and I started ascending quicker than I would have liked. At that point my self rescue brain kicked in with my Rescue diver training. I absolutely made sure i was breathing, put my right hand above my head to protect from the overhang, made sure my reg was in my mouth, my mask was on and tried to deflate my bcd but could not get the proper positioning. I was also tied up in the line. The safety instructor saw all this, was able to hang onto my leg and flaire out to increase drag on the way up. Needless to say, I made it out alive. I have a new respect for diving and the cardinal rules that you learn in your Rescue class that are the key ingredients in what makes an accident an accident. [edited for buoyancy variables]
sev 16y ago
Less than a year ago me and a few friends of mine were about to drown and I had accepted it before I got out. A few of my friends were at shore, I was able to wave and yell for a bit, because I had realized I was going to drown before I actually did start to (there was a rip current and so it was pulling my friends and I backward very quickly). From my perspective, it was amazing to me that: 1) I was Yelling and screaming, and my friends at shore continued to stare toward me like everything was completely normal. 2) I was not thinking clearly that the noise from the ocean and waves would not allow my friends at shore to hear me. 3) I was stupid enough at that moment to waste energy by waving and yelling rather than trying to stay afloat. 4) Knowing how to swim well in a pool had little to do with knowing how to swim well in the ocean. 5) During the panic, I did not try to lay on my back on the water, knowing salt water keeps you afloat without much movement necessary 6) Having friends with you is no benefit at all during such a situation. In fact, it's usually a bad thing, because everyone is fighting for their lives, and no one cares what they need to push down to pull themselves up. Admittedly, we had had a few drinks and lots of food before we went in. Luckily we all survived, but we had all accepted the worst possible outcome. I was able to get out without a lifeguard, but needed to go call one for 2 of my friends who were in worse conditions than I was. If you ever get stuck in a rip current, swim diagonally toward shore.
- krolley 16y ago
  And importantly, learn to recognise a rip so that you never get in one. As I remember as a kid growing up in Australia, you can tell a rip when you can see the curl and break of a wave on either side of a part of a wave, but not in the middle. This is caused by the water that is flowing from the beach back out to sea. Also, if you get tired don't fight the rip because you will risk drowning. Float on your back and wait for help.
  - demallien 16y ago
    Also, rips have a sandy colour to them, as they are carrying out all the churned up water back out into the stiller deep water. If you are on a patrolled beach, and you find yourself in a rip, the easiest thing to do is just roll on to your back and wait for help to arrive - maybe waving a hand in the air occassionally. You certainly don't need to worry about getting swept out to sea, never to be seen again - lifesavers check rips roughly about once every 15 seconds or so (and no, I'm not exagerating - they know where the rips are, and they know that these are a big source of danger). If you are an ok swimmer you might try swimming parralel to the beach to get out of the rip before turning into the beach again. If you're a strong swimmer you can probably swim back diagonally, although if you're a strong enough swimmer for this you probably never thought of yourself as being in trouble anyway, so you probably don't need the advice.
jodrellblank 16y ago
So, at the start, if someone is ladder-climbing-panic-drowning, then they are floating, have air, and have energy ... why are they drowning? What triggered the ladder-climb-panic mode?
- whatwhatwhat 16y ago
  Possibly some kind of instinctual trigger. Think about the moment where the entire body was fully EXPECTING a lung full of air... and ready for it... but for whatever reason you become submerged and cannot get it. You aren't unconscious yet because you still have plenty of oxygen, but your instincts have been triggered on a more primitive level -- possibly initiated as the lungs failed to function as expected.
- sesqu 16y ago
  You underestimate the amount of energy swimming takes, and overestimate the amount of effort it takes to ladder-climb-panic. It takes continuous, prolonged effort to stay afloat, and a fair bit more to move forward. The less you move forward, the slower your progress and the greater the energy you need to reach shore. You start drowning when you can no longer stay afloat - that is, when you can not quite move enough water downwards to support your weight. When you have no air, you have no patience. Water is quite difficult to lean on, and you will still easily climb out of the water if presented with a grip (but will may not be able to crawl far on the ground). Swimming is excellent exercise. It will tire you out thoroughly and quite unexpectedly, but you will want to keep close to firmament.
seldo 16y ago
I almost drowned when I was about 8 years old and I remember it very clearly. I did exactly as is described -- I was face up, mouth just at the water level, arms flat, completely quiet. My parents -- who had two older children and spent their whole lives by the water -- spotted me and pulled me out. The thing I remember most is that the overriding sensation was not panic, but calm -- a weird, fatalistic calm. I was gong to die: "oops". It really is an odd physiological response, and you have absolutely no control over it.
- whatwhatwhat 16y ago
  It's surprising how many people have had a close call with this. I'm not sure exactly on my recollection, however, I had a similar incident and my reaction was not anything calm. I was angry and very frustrated. My guess is that it probably depends on the person and situation
  - ssp 16y ago
    It's surprising how many people have had a close call with this. It does explain why psychics often talk about how something happened in your childhood involving water. That always seemed pretty unlikely to hit to me, but I guess not.
    - eru 16y ago
      And it still counts as a hit, when your best friend or brother had the near-drowning experience instead. Also lots of other things can happen with water. My sister made the unpleasant acquaintance of boiling water once.
qeorge 16y ago
This hits home. I had a high school friend drown last week, at 11:30 AM, on a crowded beach. I still don't know much about it, but the description sounded quite similar to this: Tweedy said he saw someone playing in the water. He looked again, and ocean waves were rolling the man over. http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100630/ARTICLES/100639975?Title=Bystanders-brother-tried-to-revive-Ocean-Isle-Beach-drowning-victim http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100630/ARTICLES/1006... RIP Carter
dtf 16y ago
Interesting instructional video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndbGvjqEweA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndbGvjqEweA
sofal 16y ago
Mario later on in the comments references some DVDs that show real life examples of drowning behavior: http://www.pia-enterprises.com/watersafety.html http://www.pia-enterprises.com/watersafety.html It really is too bad that with all the web technology today, videos like these are not available for free. Seems like they'd help save some lives if they were.
siculars 16y ago
Swimming is so fundamental to a persons survival that, according to Judaism, it is one of the four obligations a father owes his children: “Teach them Torah, teach them a trade, teach them to swim and find them a wife.”
mootothemax 16y ago
Three years ago I came close to drowning. I'm a strong swimmer, spent many years in a canoe, and am very comfortable being underwater. I went white water rafting with some friends, and we lost it on a tricky section of water. Our instructor was stuck standing on a rock by the raft, and I was in the water holding on to the raft. Fine, except that I was facing the rapid waters head-on, unable to speak and breathe. And still I held on to the raft. It took the instructor screaming that he was willing to break my hand by stamping on it - and then giving my hands a swift warning kick - before I would let go, float away and recover myself. It was truly scary at the time to think that whilst I'm rational, good with water etc, when in that mildly uncomfortable situation, my brain wanted to hold on, even if it meant I was taking on water. I'm not sure why the threat and warning kick were so effective, but am hugely thankful I got away with nothing but a bit of a bruised mind :)
- c1sc0 16y ago
  Last year I came close to drowning because of massive cramping at the end of a one-hour training in open water. The frightening part is that it took myself a long time to realize I was drowning: I probably was a bit drowsy from hypothermia. I remember going through 'left foot cramping, just continue, you'll be fine' all the way through cramping up of my upper legs & finally abdomen until I realized I was in trouble. I concur that once you are in trouble it is very difficult to signal anything to bystanders. Lessons learned: swim parallel to the coastline & don't swim alone. When you start to cramp up start to swim more conservatively, change styles, when it gets really bad, assume a fetal position & focus on floating, don't try to swim. The cramps will eventually go away, then you can slowly start moving again. Watch out for hypothermia.
tumult 16y ago
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. It is so strange to me that television continuously presents things which are disconnected from reality, and people, who watch television for hours a day, end up using it as a replacement for life experience. I cannot really blame people for this; I think most people (here in America, at least) see most of their lives through television, so it's only natural that it's where most of their 'experience' comes from. But it's still dangerous. And things like this (choking, injuries/wounds, freezing, etc.) are all presented in such an unrealistic way, but with such consistency, that people never even question whether or not that's how it is outside of television and movies. I wish television producers were more responsible. It's made us into a nation of incorrectly trained, mislead incompetents. Article is light on HN content, though.
- warfangle 16y ago
  Medical shows legally have to be responsible. Apparently at some point, someone took medical advice from a soap opera and a life was lost because of it. From that day forward they hire RNs part time to fill in gaps in the script with medical terms. A friend worked in an office that contracted out an army of RNs for this kind of script work. Pretty weird when you think about it.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  television continuously presents things which are disconnected from reality, and people, who watch television for hours a day, end up using it as a replacement for life experience. Aside from their absurd depiction of computers and other high tech, which go without saying... Hollywood depiction of violence is inaccurate, and I think partly responsible for some common fears. On one hand, you'll see hand-to-hand combat go on seemingly forever, with the combatants absorbing huge amounts of damage, yet continuing on without any apparent loss of stamina. On the other hand, guns are depicted as instant killers. A single shot, even in an extremity or the belly, is immediately incapacitated and no longer a factor (except possibly at the end of the battle when we discover they've been playing dead). In reality, there's nothing that a single shot will do to immediately incapacitate someone, short of outright destruction of the CNS. Even a shot to the heart, femoral artery, etc., leaves at least several seconds of consciousness during which a determined attacker could get off another shot of his own. And according to my self defense firearms instructor, in a conflict it's likely that you won't even notice you're shot immediately, or at least not be aware of the severity.
ajuc 16y ago
I've been in situation like described - I, my father, my uncle and my 2 step sisters were swiming in a pond, the pond wasn't very deep - I could stand on the bottom, but the bottom was muddy and feet were falling throught this bottom sometimes even like 10 cm down - I could barely take a breath when standing in the deepest places. My step sister was walking in the water, when she steped on more muddy bottom and fall under water. She was quiet and doing strange things with her hands, nobody reacted for a while, then I walked to her and give her hand (I was able to stand on the bottom there, but only barely). It looked funny and not dangerous at all - like she just were playing in water, uncle and father didn't know anything is wrong. To this day I thought that she wasn't really drowning - because she was supposed to do the show like in TV.
mvittone 16y ago
Thanks everyone for the comments and for sharing this article. You guys are great. ~ Mario Vittone

611 points by msg 16y ago

To this should be added some information for would-be rescuers of drowning people. The instinctive drowning response is a climbing response. What you see are twin splashes as the person's arms flail wide looking for something to grab on to. If they find it the automatic response is to grab it, climb up, and stand on top. The person doing this is panicked and has massively more strength than you think. If you are swimming and a young child does that to you, you will go under water. If you panic, you will get the same reflex, and will drown yourself. Therefore if you wish to rescue someone who is drowning, you have 4 basic options. 1. The most common response is to go to them and try to rescue directly. If the water is shallow enough that you can stand, letting them climb up you can be OK. Otherwise this is suicide. Frequently one drowning leads to multiple others, and this is exactly how they get started. 2. Keep your distance and hand them something to climb on. They can't see a pole to grab it, but if they touch, they will climb, which gives them air. 3. Wait until the drowning person is unconscious. Then go to them and tow them in. If you can't stand in the water, and don't have anything to do 2) with, this is recommended. 4. (For trained people only.) Swim up behind them, grab them from where they can't grab you, and lift them up to get air. Talk soothingly to them until they relax, and then tow them in. If they get hold of you, DIVE so they let go, back off, circle around, and start again. If you do not have lifeguard training then I strongly recommend against trying #4. Unless you know how to do the eggbeater you won't know how to hold them out of water. And if they grab you, you have surprisingly little time to make the correct response before you are drowning as well. Oh yes, and another data point. Drowning is the #1 cause of death in toddlers. It is quiet. It is fast. Beware of the backyard pool.

dgabriel 16y ago
My now 8yo, then 3yo, almost drowned in a hotel pool while I was swimming just a couple of yards away from him. I reached him in seconds, and his reaction was to scale me like a tree, at which point I flung him onto the concrete. He had some scrapes and bruises, but he was alive. I'm not a trained rescue professional, and I didn't know any of this information before you posted it. It's kind of amazing to look back and see how textbook his response was (and how terrifyingly unprepared I was).
drx 16y ago
This is incredibly useful information, thank you for posting it. In emergency situations (like drowning) I tend to try to rescue people who might be in danger (as long as it's safe, of course). This I did not know and it could have had dire consequences for me.
superk 16y ago
In regard to 3... How do you know when the drowning person is unconscious... that would be when they dip under and don't come back up? They're lungs would be full of water then? So you would have to swim down to them, pull them to dry land (they won't float) and resuscitate them? I understand sometimes that could be the only option... but seems like a heavy responsibility.
- kelnos 16y ago
  > but seems like a heavy responsibility. When in a dangerous situation, your first responsibility is to yourself. Rescuing someone else can be risky, and getting yourself into the same situation as the person in trouble helps no one, and increases the burden on any other would-be rescuers, whether professional (lifeguard, fire fighter, etc.) or another Good Samaritan like yourself. But I agree that it seems like waiting for the drowning person to become unconscious dramatically increases the chance that they won't survive. That's gotta be a tough decision to make.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pistos2 16y ago
    [My First Aid training tells me that] although brain death occurs in just a few minutes once the brain ceases to get oxygen supplied to it, if CPR is applied to a casualty, and the casualty can get in an ambulance and into a hospital within an hour or so (the "Golden Hour"), he or she stands a decent chance of surviving. The CPR would provide some oxygen to the brain and the rest of the body (while the ambulance makes its way to the scene), so if you can bring the casualty to shore within 2 or 3 minutes of them going unconscious, there's still reason for optimism. As such, I would say it's not unreasonable to wait for the drowning person to lose consciousness if you aren't confident you could prevent or deal with him or her dragging you down.
    - JshWright 16y ago
      The "Golden Hour" refers to the time it should take to get a trauma patient to a surgical table. The odds of a (non-hypothermic) cardiac arrest patient being viable after an hour are slim to none. However, the good news is that drownings are one of the few times where Hollywood-style CPR "Do a couple rounds and they wake up" can occur. Their heart stopped beating because it stopped getting oxygen, not due to some other type of damage. So if you do CPR for a little while and get their heart oxygenated again, it can start back up in its own (most pools nowadays have an AED as well)
jakevoytko 16y ago
"The instinctive drowning response is a climbing response. What you see are twin splashes as the person's arms flail wide looking for something to grab on to. If they find it the automatic response is to grab it, climb up, and stand on top." Reading this, I connected the dots on a childhood experience of mine. When I was very young, I was in a public pool that had a "big" deep end, about 5.5 feet. I couldn't swim, but I still went to the deep end. I sank to the bottom and jumped to the surface to get air, and slowly traveled wherever I wanted to go. All of a sudden, WHAM! I got tackled from behind by a lifeguard and breathed a mouthful of water. He took me out and asked me if I was OK. Between hacking coughs I said I was. My mom brought my towel to me and asked me what I was supposed to say. I yelled and slapped his legs with my towel. I probably got punished for that later. At the time I didn't understand why the lifeguard rescued me. I felt fine, and I was probably about a minute away from the edge of the pool at the rate I moved. But that's exactly what I looked like from the surface - both arms grabbing upwards and sideways to drive me to the surface
ihartley 16y ago
It's amazing that there aren't many tools for drowning response, and any new technology recieves major pushback from the ineffective incumbents in the space. Check out http://life-safer.com/ http://life-safer.com/ they make a throwable, bouyant, foam disk that is significantly more effective than anything else available.
philwelch 16y ago
I read this comment out loud to my girlfriend, who noted that toddlers sometimes drown by stumbling into a bucket of water. It occurred to me then that instinctive responses are a lot like code--you can hope it'll cover most of the cases most of the time, but so much code I've written does the equivalent of walking into a bucket, falling in head first, and flailing desperately when it reaches an edge case.
s-phi-nl 16y ago
While your advice seems researched and correct, the general advice passed down by Boy Scouts is reach, throw, row, go. First, try and reach something out to the victim for him to grab hold of. If that won't work, try to throw something for him to hang on to. If that fails, go to them in some kind of boat (though a surfboard may work too). If, and only if, all those things do not work, swim out to rescue them. [Edit: after having read the article, I realize that this is advice in what to do for someone experiencing aquatic distress, not someone who is drowning. My apologies.
gjm11 16y ago
Someone who may or may not be btilly posted exactly the above to Mario Vittone's blog, and got a response from Vittone saying, inter alia, "Your four points contain some good as well as some dangerous advice. There are often too many variables for lists of possible rescue techniques - but waiting for unconsciousness is a very (very) bad idea." (Emphasis mine.)
- btilly 16y ago
  It was not I who posted that there. I fully agree that waiting for unconsciousness is a very bad idea. Obviously it is an option of last resort. However from my training, I believe it to be a better idea than getting killed. And in my training it was suggested as an option of last resort if we had no other options and didn't feel comfortable making a rescue. And yes, there are a lot of variables that come into play. For example my instructor once saw 3 people drowning in a river. She rescued 2 and let the third drown because she was developing hypothermia. (The story is that one broke through thin ice, the other two tried to rescue the first. The one who died was one of the would-be rescuers.) However in general if you have the knowledge and experience to properly judge those factors for yourself, you should know more about drowning than my brief blog post.
  - jodrellblank 16y ago
    Obviously it is an option of last resort. Not obviously, since you listed it third of four and fourth was roughly "swim where they can't grab you, and drag them back to shore while avoiding their grasp", which sounds pretty straightforward to an untrained reader.
    - btilly 16y ago
      It sounds pretty straightforward when you hear it, but execution is the real challenge. And if you execute it incorrectly, you run a serious risk of death. To give an example of what can go wrong, your description suggests that you just hold the person where they can't reach you and drag them. But if you try that you'll find out the hard way that there is no good way to drag the person while they are still panicking without getting grabbed. To give another problem, can you swim in place for a minute with your hands out of the water? Try it before confidently asserting that you can. And that is substantially easier than swimming in place, holding a struggling, panicked person up. Those are among the reasons why I've so strongly recommended that untrained people avoid option #4. If you can stand on the bottom, fine. Otherwise, not so fine.
joe_the_user 16y ago
I have been in a position where I felt like I was drowning and I was able to call for help. But I'd agree that if it had been worse, the results might have been as described.
mrtron 16y ago
I was a lifeguard in my youth. I am an incredibly good swimmer. I just went white water rafting with a bunch of friends in Malaysia - and on the boat were 2 other folks that were not great swimmers. We were in pretty good rapids, and the odds were for us flipping at some point. We were all wearing lifejackets, but in the rapids at times it feels like you aren't floating much at all. The first patch of rapids another boat flipped and a bunch of people clutched on to each other basically climbing the ladder on each other - we quickly got to them but they all had swallowed a lot of water. I gave a big speech about how if someone is drowning their instinct is to grab you and pull you under - so make sure when helping others you can safely just grab them. A few rapids later we flipped. I quickly grabbed on to the raft and was doing fine - until I saw one of the poor swimmers floating face down drinking a lot of water and heading towards more rapids. I swam over and grabbed on to her, flipped her on her back and told her to relax we were going to be fine. Then we hit some more rough water and all of a sudden she was pushing down on my shoulders and I was under water for about a minute as we passed through rapids and she was struggling to stay on top of me. I outweighed her by 50 pounds and still struggled to get out from under her while being tossed around in the water. I was comfortable for the first 30 seconds or so, but at that point I started to get the whole "Damnit, I am drowning" feeling. I finally separated myself from her, threw up a few times, and then held the top of her lifejacket from a behind. My long winded story is intended to say one thing. If someone is drowning, their natural instinct will be to climb on top of you to get above water. It doesn't matter how much bigger you are - how much better of a swimmer. Even if you are really experienced it can still be difficult to rescue a drowning swimmer.
- gills 16y ago
  Spot on. I'm sorry to hear about your story but it really nails the point home. I was also a lifeguard and a competitive swimmer in my youth, and realized after some time that the single best training I ever had for escaping an active drowning victim was playing water polo! You really have to think of the victim as an adversary, keep a firm grip, and have practiced being extremely stable in the water to manage it.
  - mrtron 16y ago
siculars 16y ago
I recently took the PADI Rescue Diver certification, had been a lifeguard in my youth and currently participate in long distance swimming events (1 - 2 miles) and triathlons. I can tell you that according to the Rescue diving course the correct order of btilly's recommendations would be 2, 1, 4 and possibly 3 (while implementing 4). It should go without saying, but your immediate course of action is to call for help and/or designate someone to do so in case of an actual drowning situation. Your preferred choice of action is to stay out of the water entirely. Do not get in the water unless you must. Use any means at your disposal from lines to poles to thrown floatation devices to safely assist the victim. Keep eyes on the victim, assign someone to do so as well - in case you need to gather emergency equipment (above or swimming aides like mask/fins if they are available and if you are going in). Next would be a wading assist, again, waist/chest deep wade into the water with a line/pole/floatation device. Finally, if you must enter the water remember that YOUR SAFETY is above that of the victim. If you allow the victim to overpower you, you will become a victim yourself. The most powerful tool at your disposal at this stage is your voice. Talk to the victim, reassure them, let them know you are there for them and everything will be ok. Reel them back from the edge of panic. After that, the next powerful tool at your disposal if you are overtaken by a panicked swimmer is to dive and push the victim away from you while under water - the victim will not follow you down. Rinse repeat until the victim calms down, you get a hold on them from behind, or they pass out. Having the victim pass out is not the worst thing that can happen. It may require rescue breaths and/or cpr once you get the victim to shore/boat.
amalcon 16y ago
I was always taught to "Reach, Throw, Go": First, try to reach them with a pole or something from outside the water Second, if that doesn't work, throw something that floats like a vest or life preserver. Hope they grab on to it. Only as a last resort, actually swim out to a drowning person. Your objective should be to put the thing you just threw at them in their hands, not to drag them back to safety.
- guyzero 16y ago
  The complete list is: talk, reach, throw, row, go, tow, carry which lists the things you try and their order in terms of hazard to the lifesaver.
  - sesqu 16y ago
    That's a crappy list. It's long and it mostly rhymes, making it very easy to miss or misplace a stage.
    - guyzero 16y ago
      It rhymes because it's a mnemonic and since we got quizzed on it about a million times I still remember it 25 years later. Seems like a good list to me.
deleted 16y ago
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Tamerlin 16y ago
When I was in lifeguard training, they taught us how to deal with a struggling victim. It was a bit like aikido in the water, except that a panicking victim is probably stronger. The following year they changed the "rules" and the instructor (who was also a teacher in my high school) said that we were now to keep an eye on a struggling victim, and attempt a rescue only after they stopped struggling. I think they'd had too many lifeguards end up in need of rescue themselves when they went after a panicked victim and got yanked underwater.
nradov 16y ago
A rescuer just died near Carmel, CA on Sunday. http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_15449083 http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_15449083

patio11 16y ago

The drowning response is also why you are strongly advised to not get into the water to assist a drowning victim and why trained rescuers who do so violently manhandle drowning victims (if you administered similar aid on land it would look like a violent assault featuring a choke-hold delivered from behind). Drowning victims are virtually incapable of cooperation in their own rescue and their panicked struggles have the very real potential of drowning would-be rescuers. I pulled someone out once (in flagrant violation of the above advice) -- my (possibly inaccurate) recollection is that he made no noise whatsoever between entering the water and exiting it beyond the sound of the first splash.

btilly 16y ago
When I received lifeguard training 2 dozen years ago, I was taught ways of rescuing people that don't involve the use of force, and the person teaching the class strongly recommended against learning the more violent approaches that were once used. As I recall, her claim was that they were less effective, and carried a significant risk of causing injury.
- whatusername 16y ago
  Risk of Injury is much better than drowning alongside then.. (But I'm not a lifeguard -- so I'll shutup) // I was somewhat shocked when I did an L2 First Aid course a couple of years back. The Ambulance Officer running the class talked about CPR -- push much harder than you think you should. A couple of broken ribs will heal. A stopped heat beat wont.
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    Yes. I was advised by an Army medic that effective CPR will break ribs. Also, you need to blow really hard for the breathing to be effective -- you need to see the chest actually move upwards as a result of your blowing. If you've had CPR training, hopefully you had an opportunity to use a real Resusci-Annie (sp?), which has sensors indicating that your doing both the chest compression and the breathing with sufficient force. That same medic also told me that generally the victim will vomit, probably right into your mouth.

16s 16y ago

It's authoritative knowledge such as this that makes the Internet worthwhile (if you can find it among all the garbage). I had no idea what drowning was like before reading this. Thanks for writing this blog post!

krschultz 16y ago

Ugh, this entire post is lifted from the original source and then a link is posted at the bottom. The person who actually wrote this great article is getting none of the revenue. Go to the original instead at gCaptain.

chaosmachine 16y ago
The person who actually wrote the article is Mario Vittone. Looks like he just cross-posted to another site.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Part one of the article is excellent too: http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/cold_water?11198 http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/cold_water?11198 Bunch of stuff I didn't know.
- mvittone 16y ago
  I appreciate the traffic to either site. I wrote the post on gCaptain almost a year ago - it just never really got any play until now. Links to gCaptain are great. It's a professional site owned by a friend of mine. I'm still active duty Coast Guard so my site doesn't generate revenue. I'm just very glad to get the word out about this important subject. Thanks again everyone!
carbocation 16y ago
If you were to look at the byline on the gCaptain article, you'd see it's the same individual who has crossposted it.
- krschultz 16y ago
  whoops
  - msg 16y ago
    Right. I actually did not spot the gCaptain article, but I did see that the domain and the author matched. Thanks for pointing out the first half though!

charliepark 16y ago

In Boy Scouts, we learned the rhyme "Reach, Throw, Row, Go", regarding the order of assistance to provide. We also learned that if the victim tries to climb you, to submerge a bit (so they let go) and punch him (or her, sure) in the nuts, and to then rescue him.

gcv 16y ago

So when the brain perceives drowning, it basically shuts down and starts doing self-destructive things? The article says that a rescuer being pushed down by someone who is drowning can end up in trouble too — and this is a real risk to a rescuer who normally swims and dives like a fish? I don't mean to sound skeptical, I'd just like a little clarification. I never understood how swimmers can possibly drown unless hypothermic or completely exhausted. If this is the case, then it's horrible that we haven't evolved out of this destructive "drowning response instinct".

randallsquared 16y ago
You call it destructive, but it sounds like it's nearly optimum for getting back out of water you just fell into. "Grab the riverbank or a tree; climb up it." That's simple and effective. The only time it causes further problem is when you're on a boat and fall in, or otherwise find yourself suddenly away from the shore.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  Right. I can't swim a lick. Once, while on a solo backpacking trip very much in the middle of nowhere, many tens of miles from the next person, and while navigating a river canyon, I fell into the cold water, well over my head. Somehow my toe touched something on the bottom and I rocketed out of the water like an explosion. The next thing I knew, I was flopped over onto a large rock like a fish, a few feet from where I fell in. I still have no idea exactly how that all happened, but near as I can guess I gave the best leap of my life and scrambled the rest of the way up. I really need to learn how to swim. :-(
  - Tichy 16y ago
    Sign up for a course today, in fact, do it right now, it is probably just a few mouse clicks away?
Semiapies 16y ago
Despite a lot of floofy rhetoric, we didn't evolve to spend time in the water. We're land apes with reflexes that try to get us out of the water after we've fallen in.

deleted 16y ago

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johnfn 16y ago
I don't think that hacker news has any "topic" that articles must stick to, other than that they pique intellectual curiosity. As for that, I think that this article does well.

whatwhatwhat 16y ago

When I was a child (about 7 years) I nearly drowned at a public swimming pool full of people. My family was there including my mother, smiling at me from all of 5 feet away. After I ran out of air and strength... it was actually my (then 9 year old) brother who saved me. As a child I was simply infuriated with my mother, that she would sit there smiling acting like everything was okay while I was fighting for my life. I guess I know why now. Thanks for this article -- it won't be forgotten.

ergo98 16y ago
Same thing happened to me, and it was my older her sister who pulled me out. I can vividly remember looking up and out of the water.

spanktheuser 16y ago

This reminds me of something from scuba certification. After doing all this scary stuff underwater( like taking the regulator out of your mouth, dropping it, then recovering and re-inserting with your eyes closed) one of the last tests was to take off your mask, put it back on, and use your regulator bubbles to blow your mask clear of water. Easy, I thought. You get to keep your regulator in the whole time. So you could literally spend 60 minutes getting this right with absolutely no danger. Frankly, it sounded about as intimidating as washing your hair in the shower. Oh, how wrong I was. Despite the fact that I knew I was perfectly safe, the second my face was immersed in water, I had to fight hard to not panic. I felt waves of fear threatening to engulf me, and it took every ounce of self control not to bolt for the surface (which can injure or kill you). Two other students did bolt for the surface before being grabbed by instructors. I later learned that this is a very common, instinctive reaction. I was amazed at how powerful this reaction was, and gained a newfound respect for the lizard brain.

lief79 16y ago
In hindsight, and after taking more advanced courses, it became quite clear that scuba instruction was all about teaching the students how not to panic. I hope they make that clear to the instructors, as I only went for personal instruction.
- callahad 16y ago
  Cave training places an extremely strong emphasis on controlling panic. In open water, if you bolt to the surface you might get bent, but there are chambers for that. In a cave, you either swim out, or you drown. You don't even have the option of a quick, merciful DCS hit. Keeping a clear head is essential when your own self-rescue is on the line.
  - siculars 16y ago
    I just went for my Cavern Diver Cert and am not ashamed to say I had to withdraw, washout as it were. The odd thing was that the place I was taking the Certification allowed fun divers with only an Open water Cert to dive the caverns (with guides, of course). After my experience, there is absolutely no way I would ever, ever, ever advise anyone to ever go cavern/cave diving without the appropriate instruction and cert level. If for only the reason of exposure to cave(rn) panic inducing situations. It is the lack of exposure that will bring on a massive panic attack at the absolute worst moment that can kill not only the diver, but the entire group. Personally, I had a weighting issue. As in I was too heavy. the instructor told me to use 10% bodyweight + 6 lbs. as the weight. 175 lbs, head to toe 7mm wetsuit, one AL80 tank @ 2500 psi, fresh water - anyone know the algo for figuring weight with these variables? Haven't done my peak performance buoyancy yet... My trim was off, we went over a cliff with an overhang, I was in the process of calling the dive at this point as my trim was positioning me vertically. As soon as I hit vertical my belt slid right off into the 150 ft abyss taking a fin with it and I started ascending quicker than I would have liked. At that point my self rescue brain kicked in with my Rescue diver training. I absolutely made sure i was breathing, put my right hand above my head to protect from the overhang, made sure my reg was in my mouth, my mask was on and tried to deflate my bcd but could not get the proper positioning. I was also tied up in the line. The safety instructor saw all this, was able to hang onto my leg and flaire out to increase drag on the way up. Needless to say, I made it out alive. I have a new respect for diving and the cardinal rules that you learn in your Rescue class that are the key ingredients in what makes an accident an accident. [edited for buoyancy variables]

sev 16y ago

Less than a year ago me and a few friends of mine were about to drown and I had accepted it before I got out. A few of my friends were at shore, I was able to wave and yell for a bit, because I had realized I was going to drown before I actually did start to (there was a rip current and so it was pulling my friends and I backward very quickly). From my perspective, it was amazing to me that: 1) I was Yelling and screaming, and my friends at shore continued to stare toward me like everything was completely normal. 2) I was not thinking clearly that the noise from the ocean and waves would not allow my friends at shore to hear me. 3) I was stupid enough at that moment to waste energy by waving and yelling rather than trying to stay afloat. 4) Knowing how to swim well in a pool had little to do with knowing how to swim well in the ocean. 5) During the panic, I did not try to lay on my back on the water, knowing salt water keeps you afloat without much movement necessary 6) Having friends with you is no benefit at all during such a situation. In fact, it's usually a bad thing, because everyone is fighting for their lives, and no one cares what they need to push down to pull themselves up. Admittedly, we had had a few drinks and lots of food before we went in. Luckily we all survived, but we had all accepted the worst possible outcome. I was able to get out without a lifeguard, but needed to go call one for 2 of my friends who were in worse conditions than I was. If you ever get stuck in a rip current, swim diagonally toward shore.

krolley 16y ago
And importantly, learn to recognise a rip so that you never get in one. As I remember as a kid growing up in Australia, you can tell a rip when you can see the curl and break of a wave on either side of a part of a wave, but not in the middle. This is caused by the water that is flowing from the beach back out to sea. Also, if you get tired don't fight the rip because you will risk drowning. Float on your back and wait for help.
- demallien 16y ago
  Also, rips have a sandy colour to them, as they are carrying out all the churned up water back out into the stiller deep water. If you are on a patrolled beach, and you find yourself in a rip, the easiest thing to do is just roll on to your back and wait for help to arrive - maybe waving a hand in the air occassionally. You certainly don't need to worry about getting swept out to sea, never to be seen again - lifesavers check rips roughly about once every 15 seconds or so (and no, I'm not exagerating - they know where the rips are, and they know that these are a big source of danger). If you are an ok swimmer you might try swimming parralel to the beach to get out of the rip before turning into the beach again. If you're a strong swimmer you can probably swim back diagonally, although if you're a strong enough swimmer for this you probably never thought of yourself as being in trouble anyway, so you probably don't need the advice.

jodrellblank 16y ago

So, at the start, if someone is ladder-climbing-panic-drowning, then they are floating, have air, and have energy ... why are they drowning? What triggered the ladder-climb-panic mode?

whatwhatwhat 16y ago
Possibly some kind of instinctual trigger. Think about the moment where the entire body was fully EXPECTING a lung full of air... and ready for it... but for whatever reason you become submerged and cannot get it. You aren't unconscious yet because you still have plenty of oxygen, but your instincts have been triggered on a more primitive level -- possibly initiated as the lungs failed to function as expected.
sesqu 16y ago
You underestimate the amount of energy swimming takes, and overestimate the amount of effort it takes to ladder-climb-panic. It takes continuous, prolonged effort to stay afloat, and a fair bit more to move forward. The less you move forward, the slower your progress and the greater the energy you need to reach shore. You start drowning when you can no longer stay afloat - that is, when you can not quite move enough water downwards to support your weight. When you have no air, you have no patience. Water is quite difficult to lean on, and you will still easily climb out of the water if presented with a grip (but will may not be able to crawl far on the ground). Swimming is excellent exercise. It will tire you out thoroughly and quite unexpectedly, but you will want to keep close to firmament.

seldo 16y ago

I almost drowned when I was about 8 years old and I remember it very clearly. I did exactly as is described -- I was face up, mouth just at the water level, arms flat, completely quiet. My parents -- who had two older children and spent their whole lives by the water -- spotted me and pulled me out. The thing I remember most is that the overriding sensation was not panic, but calm -- a weird, fatalistic calm. I was gong to die: "oops". It really is an odd physiological response, and you have absolutely no control over it.

whatwhatwhat 16y ago
It's surprising how many people have had a close call with this. I'm not sure exactly on my recollection, however, I had a similar incident and my reaction was not anything calm. I was angry and very frustrated. My guess is that it probably depends on the person and situation
- ssp 16y ago
  It's surprising how many people have had a close call with this. It does explain why psychics often talk about how something happened in your childhood involving water. That always seemed pretty unlikely to hit to me, but I guess not.
  - eru 16y ago
    And it still counts as a hit, when your best friend or brother had the near-drowning experience instead. Also lots of other things can happen with water. My sister made the unpleasant acquaintance of boiling water once.

qeorge 16y ago

This hits home. I had a high school friend drown last week, at 11:30 AM, on a crowded beach. I still don't know much about it, but the description sounded quite similar to this: Tweedy said he saw someone playing in the water. He looked again, and ocean waves were rolling the man over. http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100630/ARTICLES/100639975?Title=Bystanders-brother-tried-to-revive-Ocean-Isle-Beach-drowning-victim http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100630/ARTICLES/1006... RIP Carter

dtf 16y ago

Interesting instructional video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndbGvjqEweA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndbGvjqEweA

sofal 16y ago

Mario later on in the comments references some DVDs that show real life examples of drowning behavior: http://www.pia-enterprises.com/watersafety.html http://www.pia-enterprises.com/watersafety.html It really is too bad that with all the web technology today, videos like these are not available for free. Seems like they'd help save some lives if they were.

siculars 16y ago

Swimming is so fundamental to a persons survival that, according to Judaism, it is one of the four obligations a father owes his children: “Teach them Torah, teach them a trade, teach them to swim and find them a wife.”

mootothemax 16y ago

Three years ago I came close to drowning. I'm a strong swimmer, spent many years in a canoe, and am very comfortable being underwater. I went white water rafting with some friends, and we lost it on a tricky section of water. Our instructor was stuck standing on a rock by the raft, and I was in the water holding on to the raft. Fine, except that I was facing the rapid waters head-on, unable to speak and breathe. And still I held on to the raft. It took the instructor screaming that he was willing to break my hand by stamping on it - and then giving my hands a swift warning kick - before I would let go, float away and recover myself. It was truly scary at the time to think that whilst I'm rational, good with water etc, when in that mildly uncomfortable situation, my brain wanted to hold on, even if it meant I was taking on water. I'm not sure why the threat and warning kick were so effective, but am hugely thankful I got away with nothing but a bit of a bruised mind :)

c1sc0 16y ago
Last year I came close to drowning because of massive cramping at the end of a one-hour training in open water. The frightening part is that it took myself a long time to realize I was drowning: I probably was a bit drowsy from hypothermia. I remember going through 'left foot cramping, just continue, you'll be fine' all the way through cramping up of my upper legs & finally abdomen until I realized I was in trouble. I concur that once you are in trouble it is very difficult to signal anything to bystanders. Lessons learned: swim parallel to the coastline & don't swim alone. When you start to cramp up start to swim more conservatively, change styles, when it gets really bad, assume a fetal position & focus on floating, don't try to swim. The cramps will eventually go away, then you can slowly start moving again. Watch out for hypothermia.

tumult 16y ago

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. It is so strange to me that television continuously presents things which are disconnected from reality, and people, who watch television for hours a day, end up using it as a replacement for life experience. I cannot really blame people for this; I think most people (here in America, at least) see most of their lives through television, so it's only natural that it's where most of their 'experience' comes from. But it's still dangerous. And things like this (choking, injuries/wounds, freezing, etc.) are all presented in such an unrealistic way, but with such consistency, that people never even question whether or not that's how it is outside of television and movies. I wish television producers were more responsible. It's made us into a nation of incorrectly trained, mislead incompetents. Article is light on HN content, though.

warfangle 16y ago
Medical shows legally have to be responsible. Apparently at some point, someone took medical advice from a soap opera and a life was lost because of it. From that day forward they hire RNs part time to fill in gaps in the script with medical terms. A friend worked in an office that contracted out an army of RNs for this kind of script work. Pretty weird when you think about it.
CWuestefeld 16y ago
television continuously presents things which are disconnected from reality, and people, who watch television for hours a day, end up using it as a replacement for life experience. Aside from their absurd depiction of computers and other high tech, which go without saying... Hollywood depiction of violence is inaccurate, and I think partly responsible for some common fears. On one hand, you'll see hand-to-hand combat go on seemingly forever, with the combatants absorbing huge amounts of damage, yet continuing on without any apparent loss of stamina. On the other hand, guns are depicted as instant killers. A single shot, even in an extremity or the belly, is immediately incapacitated and no longer a factor (except possibly at the end of the battle when we discover they've been playing dead). In reality, there's nothing that a single shot will do to immediately incapacitate someone, short of outright destruction of the CNS. Even a shot to the heart, femoral artery, etc., leaves at least several seconds of consciousness during which a determined attacker could get off another shot of his own. And according to my self defense firearms instructor, in a conflict it's likely that you won't even notice you're shot immediately, or at least not be aware of the severity.

ajuc 16y ago

I've been in situation like described - I, my father, my uncle and my 2 step sisters were swiming in a pond, the pond wasn't very deep - I could stand on the bottom, but the bottom was muddy and feet were falling throught this bottom sometimes even like 10 cm down - I could barely take a breath when standing in the deepest places. My step sister was walking in the water, when she steped on more muddy bottom and fall under water. She was quiet and doing strange things with her hands, nobody reacted for a while, then I walked to her and give her hand (I was able to stand on the bottom there, but only barely). It looked funny and not dangerous at all - like she just were playing in water, uncle and father didn't know anything is wrong. To this day I thought that she wasn't really drowning - because she was supposed to do the show like in TV.

mvittone 16y ago

Thanks everyone for the comments and for sharing this article. You guys are great. ~ Mario Vittone