26 ms·

Spot the Drowning Child (2015)

• dr_dshiv 7y ago
  In the Netherlands, children learn early to swim in their clothes and shoes because of the risk of falling in a canal.
  • orion_uranus 7y ago
    Yep. For anyone curious: "Diploma A" can be started at age 4. The requirements to finish the exam are: - Swimming with clothes on after an unexpected fall into the water, able to orient themselves above water and leave the water independently. - Enter the water in different ways, can orient themselves and proceed to swim through something. - Can use one or more of the 4 basic strokes (breaststroke, single backstroke, front crawl, back crawl) to swim a base distance - Can float on his back and stomach. Feels confident in the water. - Can do water steps(?) with arms and legs, can turn and orient themselves. The clothing required are: - Bath clothes - Shirt/Crew neck with long sleeves - Long pants, dress or skirt (reaches the ankle) - Shoes (plastic/leather/sports) Source: https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/diploma-a/ https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/diploma-a/ Diploma A is the first of the three diplomas (ABC). If you have all of those you meet the national swimming safety standard. More reading: https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/nationale-zwemdiplomas/zwem-abc/ https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/nationale-zwemdiplomas/zwem-...
• abafazi 7y ago
  It's funny because Niggers can't swim
  • dang 7y ago
    We've banned this account. Posting like this will get your main account banned as well, so please don't.
    • pvg 7y ago
      Shouldn't that be an unconditional ban of all associated accounts
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• cafebabbe 7y ago
  So many of them don't have arm bands? It's borderline criminal to allow untrained kids in a pool without wearing those.
  • chrismeller 7y ago
    Admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve been to a public pool, and only ever in the US, but there was never any such requirement. I mean even if they did ask “can you swim?” that doesn’t really mean much, it’s not like there’s an official certification process... and either way, doesn’t mean they can’t still drown, so the lesson is relevant anyway.
    • undineine 7y ago
      European pools generally ask under children under 14 or so who go swimming unattended whether they have swimming diplomas. If you complete your swimming diplomas, you get stickers for your swim shorts to show you have completed them. Generally certain rides in water parks, like fast slides or streams will require you to have higher levels of swimming training to go on if you're under 14.
      • watwut 7y ago
        I live in Europe and never seen this.
        • Hamuko 7y ago
          I live in Europe and while we did have some kind of stickers for attending swimming school, I don't think those were something that you'd actual have on you.
          • trissi 7y ago
            For me and my buddys in school it was quite a thing of "pride" to have the better diploma's (there was a beginner one + bronze to gold) (this was around 2004)
• chrismeller 7y ago
  All in all after watching several of their videos I feel like I do a good job of recognizing the drowning person, but I’m amazed at how quickly the lifeguards spot it and dive into action. Even knowing that in this short clip there is absolutely someone drowning I still have doubt, but the lifeguard who doesn’t have that context is already half way to the person by the time I’m sure.
  • Hamuko 7y ago
    How long of a shift do lifeguards even have? Because I wouldn't feel confident in being able to observe a bunch of people in a pool for hours for what are quite subtle clues.
    • tnorthcutt 7y ago
      The lifeguards at my local (city) pool rotate very frequently; I’d say every 15 minutes or so. Their shift is longer of course, but they aren’t sitting observing for more than around 15 minutes at a time.
      • SilasX 7y ago
        Semi-OT: it came up in an earlier discussion that the 15 minute rule is common, and makes for better attention fatigue management than Uber has for SDC test drivers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19373662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19373662
    • Waterluvian 7y ago
      Not sure this is indicative but at my local pool you can see them switching up between active duty and idling nearby in the hut about every 15 mins.
    • dahfizz 7y ago
      I was a lifeguard at the YMCA, and we would never be on duty for more than 45 minutes at a time unless we were short staffed. You were constantly rotating and given short breaks or small tasks to keep sharp.
• rendall 7y ago
  Something in the embed code prevents the "allow full screen" from working properly, so the video is tiny and scrunched up into the upper left hand corner. When I watched this on YouTube, with full screen enabled, I spotted the poor little fellow within about 5 seconds. This is using the latest chrome (v80.0.3987.132) This worked, though: <iframe id="player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" title="YouTube video player" width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T5mDQeDkca0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
  • chrismeller 7y ago
    In Safari on mobile you have the opposite problem - it’s too large for the display and there’s no way to make it smaller (or full screen). I kind of assumed that was intentional, since the lifeguard can’t make it full screen or zoom in either. :)
    • xenocratus 7y ago
      ... for them it is already full screen and way better resolution
  • Vinnl 7y ago
    The reason for this, I think, is that the idea is that you click on the drowning person when you see it. They're probably assuming dimensions in able to correlate your click with their actual position.
    • rendall 7y ago
      Oh!!! Maybe? There is a allowfullscreen="1" in there, so I think they do want a fullscreen, just... I dunno.
• saagarjha 7y ago
  I was able to consistently identify the drowning child faster than the lifeguard fairly easily, but it did require a significant amount of concentration (I'm sure it helped that I knew that I was supposed to look for someone in trouble). I'm not sure if I could pay that much attention for a long period of time…
• HenryBemis 7y ago
  To all parents out there, it takes 10 seconds for a toddler to drown. Once in the water, if they go under, they tend to get disoriented and don't know where is up or down. When you are with your kids near a swimming pool or the sea, keep your eyes glued on them. My rule is "never break line of sight" (I borrowed the term from Assassin's Creed where if you break line of sights from the guards chasing you for a few seconds, their aggro switches off). Line of sight. When near water opt in for a nice podcast/audio book and keep your eyes on your kids. A lifeguard is scanning the scene but on a 50 kids, you are most likely to spot something like this faster/sooner. Also while looking at your kids, you automatically scan/cover an area of 10-15sqm.
  • missosoup 7y ago
    > My rule is "never break line of sight" That's an actual law with children in Australia, idk about the rest of the world. <5 years old within arms reach, <10 years old within line of sight.
    • mcv 7y ago
      In my experience, <4 years, you hold them if the water is more than a few inches deep; 5-6 years, you're within 2 meters and paying attention to them; once they've got their first swimming diploma, you need to be near the pool; after their second, they can swim on their own, even they're under 10.
  • ElgamalDSA 7y ago
    Friends of friends recently had their 1.5 year old drown in the bathtub when her dad left her alone for a minute. When you are at a pool / lake / sea with a kid that cannot swim, keep them in arms reach.
    • Fnoord 7y ago
      As a young adult, I almost drowned in a bathtub when taking magic mushrooms for the first time (a very small dosage of ~1/6th of a full dosage). I did put less water in the tub, but I still fell asleep, and when I woke up, the water line was a few mm from my nose openings. Do not use such drugs without a babysitter!
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• Insanity 7y ago
  I could spot a few - but was faster than the lifeguard only once. (Well, before they came into view, considering the time it took before they came into view I was probably slower). It'd be a lot harder in real life, when you don't know if there's going to be a drowning kid.. being prepared is half the game.
  • dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    It's easier in real life because nobody just jumps in the deep end and starts drowning. When you're doing nothing but watching the pool you notice who is and isn't a strong swimmer and focus your attention on the kids who look like they're a higher risk. Also when you do it all day you get good. Most people who are struggling will know it and make it to the side of the pool with no issues so you get a lot of experience identifying what "not drowning but might soon" looks like.
    • chii 7y ago
      you can drown even if youre a strong swimmer. a cramp in your feet/abdomen can cause you to drown.
      • keanzu 7y ago
        I've had severe cramps in my legs/feet many times in deep ocean water with no-one around. If you drown from a foot cramp you are not a strong swimmer.
        • AstralStorm 7y ago
          Or you're incorrectly trained. You should always be able to flip and float on your back if push comes to shove, and in that position you can swim just using your arms.
          • JoeAltmaier 7y ago
            Floating on your back is only possible for a subset of the population. There are plenty of people who simply sink when on their back, and must kick or more their arms constantly to stay afloat. FWIW
• mjlee 7y ago
  Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning [1] has gone round the internet a number of times over the last decade. Well worth reading if you spend time around water, and a good read in any case. [1] https://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/ https://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/
  • bmgxyz 7y ago
    Thanks for this. I hadn't read it before, and it's quite interesting. In particular: > One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. When I was a kid, I spent a few summers learning to sail. Part of our training included responding to falling overboard or capsizing our small boats with crews of two. Our instructors insisted that whenever this happened we first call out to each other, "Are you okay?" and confirm it before attempting to right the boat. I never understood why, but now I do.
    • MS90 7y ago
      I remember watching the Discovery channel series BUD/S 234 about SEAL training, it stuck out to me that during their swimming test where they're required to swim an entire lap of the pool underwater that the first thing they're required to do when they come up is yell "I FEEL FINE" as loud as they can. Anyone who didn't do so was instantly hauled out of the pool and sent to the medic. Which was good, because some of the men were unconscious when they got there, though they still passed the test! The requirements were to swim down, touch the far wall, swim back, touch the near wall, all while remaining underwater. State of consciousness was never specified :)
• w-m 7y ago
  The first one I got was #26 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAfTA2wf7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAfTA2wf7o) and I find it quite hard to detect. Just next to the drowning child, there are a few others splashing around, which looks nearly identical. Could a machine make the distinction reliably? Also interesting to note that there are many people really close by who do not notice the drowning, but spring into action to help once the lifeguard jumped.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    The things that gave it away for me are the head being really close to the waterline and desperate-looking, rapid flapping by the arms to try to stay above the water. Disclaimer: not a lifeguard, this might not actually be valid.
  • de_Selby 7y ago
    It's a bad angle, the lifeguard had a much better view. The lifeguard was actually quite slow to react to that one though.
• kentosi 7y ago
  Can we please update the title with "2015" ? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185
  • Someone1234 7y ago
    Why? Typically you age an article to contextualize it (sometimes REALLY important). In this case it is an interactive educational tool, the age hasn't changed its purpose, value, or usage.
    • Tomte 7y ago
      I fully agree with you, but the fight has already been fought and lost. HN regulars strongly prefer a year whenever it's not the current year, and the mods have confirmed that we should do so.
    • clarry 7y ago
      Because someone seeing the title might want to know if it's something new or the same thing they saw three years ago. (Sometimes, new things pop up under a title that has been seen before)
  • tlb 7y ago
    Added, thanks.
• wycy 7y ago
  It seems like spotting drowning children could be a good use case for computer vision, at least as a backup. The heuristics for a drowning child are pretty marked, but they're hard to spot for humans distracted by lots of other stimuli.
  • xythum 7y ago
    Looks like this has already been done: https://swimeye.com/ https://swimeye.com/
    • Hamuko 7y ago
      But apparently only on the pool bottom.
      • keanzu 7y ago
        Exactly, seems a bit late. Hasn't serious injury already occurred by the time a person is motionless on the bottom of the pool?
        • xythum 7y ago
          That'll teach me to pay more attention to the details rather than going "Welp, there goes my start-up idea". Yes, that doesn't look great - I assumed when I saw it was underwater that it was effectively looking up at the people on the surface and detecting people in distress from that angle. On closer inspection that doesn't seem to be the case.
  • Jaruzel 7y ago
    But who would you sue if the computer vision didn't spot your child drowning?
    • rezic 7y ago
      > as a backup It'd be a tool that can warn the lifeguards in the event that they didn't notice the drowning, not the only thing that monitors the pool.
• huffmsa 7y ago
  Looks like it give you a different video each time. Lifeguarded during high school. It's hard, even in a small pool.
• rezeroed 7y ago
  This is choreographed - I don't think the comments on reactions vs lifeguard reactions mean much.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    They don't look very choreographed…
    • rezeroed 7y ago
      They do.
• minimonk 7y ago
  One of the important lessons I learnt from a lifeguard is that movies depict a very inaccurate representation of drowning. The movies would have you believe that drowning is a violent and noisy event when in reality it is an inconspicuous and silent event. The victim cannot shout or call for help when they are struggling to keep their nose above the water level. Another important lesson I learnt that sometimes when someone is rescued from drowning, they are at the risk of secondary drowning which can occur during sleep after the accident. Especially, if a child looks very weak and tired after a drowning accident, it is important to keep the child under medical care for the next 24 hours. Never take the risk of the taking the child back home in such a case.
  • conistonwater 7y ago
    Is there still water in their lungs? Why doesn't it get coughed out once they are out of the water?
    • mikequinlan 7y ago
      The water (and chemicals) in the lungs irritate and damage the lungs, which causes inflammation, which causes fluids to build up in the lungs, which eventually causes suffocation.
    • cVwEq 7y ago
      "Secondary drowning" is another term people use to describe another drowning complication. It happens if water gets into the lungs. There, it can irritate the lungs’ lining and fluid can build up, causing a condition called pulmonary edema. You’d likely notice your child having trouble breathing right away, and it might get worse over the next 24 hours. Both events are very rare. They make up only 1%-2% of all drownings, says pediatrician James Orlowski, MD, of Florida Hospital Tampa. [1] [1] https://www.webmd.com/children/features/secondary-drowning-dry-drowning https://www.webmd.com/children/features/secondary-drowning-d...
      • young_unixer 7y ago
        1%-2% doesn't seem "very rare" to me.
• mosselman 7y ago
  Jesus, looking at this and reading a few of the comments has me well scared of the dangers of water again. Good reminder, but always chilling.
  • keanzu 7y ago
    A healthy respect for pools is an excellent idea. There are few activities a child might reasonably engage in where it could go so wrong it might end up in their death. Swimming is one.
• philshem 7y ago
  Rates of drowning in Europe[0][1] vary by more than an order of magnitude. I'd be curious about compulsory swimming lessons in schools, as is done here in Switzerland[2], and its correlation to the rate of drowning. [0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20190809-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/D... [1] http://78.136.22.110/europe/info/switzerland/switzerland-drowning.pdf http://78.136.22.110/europe/info/switzerland/switzerland-dro... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_lessons#Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_lessons#Switzerland
  • AllegedAlec 7y ago
    Netherlands reporting in: swimming lessons are spread over three competency group, and as far as I know, nearly all primary schools take time in the curriculum to do at least the first two competency levels before the pupils turn 7 or 8.
    • philshem 7y ago
      Thanks for your answer. I posted my question to the open data stack exchange site[0]. If there isn't an existing dataset, maybe we can create one country by country. [0] https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/16182/1511 https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/16182/1511
      • AllegedAlec 7y ago
        Some data on the netherlands from 2014: https://www.scp.nl/dsresource?objectid=6185de0a-e909-4202-99d2-82bd64cdf2aa&type=org&& https://www.scp.nl/dsresource?objectid=6185de0a-e909-4202-99...
        • wichert 7y ago
          Interesting - that data does not quite match my experience; I was expecting a larger percentage to have B or C level diplomas. I wonder if that is due to region (more water and lakes on the west and north), (ethnic) background or something else.
• Zenst 7y ago
  This is brilliant and one of those things that should be in all schools etc as it is an education in observation awareness that holds well in many walks of life. I speak as somebody who trained to be a lifeguard in the UK - taking the bronze medallion #1 and whilst in intensive and in depth (having to know the four chambers of the heart as well as full CPR...) course with lots of practical exam parts, awareness that this gives you is something you can not learn from books and is hard to roleplay. #1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Medallion_(United_Kingdom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Medallion_(United_Kingd...
• yourapostasy 7y ago
  While there are many machine learning-based drowning detection systems out there, I'm having a hard time finding solid information comparing their reaction time and accuracy rates to lifeguards. Does anyone have any solid research that they've found? I don't want to replace lifeguards or increase their workload by spreading them thinner, but want to find out if we complement them together whether or not it would increase detection rates and lives saved. However, if the current state of the art performs abysmally compared to lifeguards, then I have doubt whether or not they can be combined for improved outcomes. [1] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=machine+learning+spot+drowning&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=machine...
  • wearcam 7y ago
    There seems to be two broad categories of products: those for pools and those for beaches. Here's a shortlist of systems for pools: Coral Manta, SwimEye, Mobotix, Axis, AngelEye, Argusmatik, Poseidon, Zwembadcamera, Optoswim, Dipsee A.I., and Lynxight Deep Vision. For beaches there's: Milestone, Coastalcoms, etc., and two of the above companies also do beaches: Dipsee A. I., and Lynxight Deep Vision.
• oauea 7y ago
  Why is there no progress bar? Do you really expect me to sit through several minutes of video of nothing happening just to prove a point? Finally I saw the child go down, so I wanted to rewind a few seconds to see what happened there. Nope, not allowed!
  • keanzu 7y ago
    The videos are on Youtube, you can click the Youtube logo in the bottom right and gain full control. The site has an overlay where you can click on the drowning person and find out if you were correct. Hence the other controls are hidden.
• tiborsaas 7y ago
  What's the point of this? Should I be surprised that I do a poor job at watching a camera footage compared to a person being present there with all sensory inputs, context, trained to spot drowning people?
  • amelius 7y ago
    The point is that most people think that it is easy to spot drowning people.
  • rtkwe 7y ago
    It shows what actually drowning looks like which is quiet and very predictable movements that don't match how most people expect it to look from movies/tv.
    • tiborsaas 7y ago
      Then I think this page does a poor job and overly dramatic. It took me 4 attempts to see the popover text box.
• _ph_ 7y ago
  I am impressed by these videos any time the pop up on hacker news. But one thing struck me: that they are using those large floatation rings. A lot of the incidents seem to be where a child looses contact to the ring and then cannot swim on itself. I am wondering, why they are allowed at all. In my personal experience, I have rarely seen such rings in public pools and that basically means, you are not getting far into the deep part of the pool without some basic swimming skills. Most people/children wouldn't even try as they don't feel comfortable with deep water without an aid.
  • keanzu 7y ago
    Those are toys that are fun to play with for people who can swim fine. The problem is when non-swimmers use them as boats. They are not safety devices. Without the rings non-swimmers couldn't get into trouble but swimmers have less fun. You could also pave over the pool with concrete and remove the hazard entirely - no fun for swimmers but all risks of drowning removed.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • lzol 7y ago
      As someone who worked as a wave pool lifeguard for 8 years and is a current certified Water Safety Instructor, I mostly agree. The large rafts are never really what I have an issue with. It's water wings and other personal flotation devices that are much more troublesome. Parents are a huge part of the issue. PFDs give them a false sense of security where they feel like they don't have to watch their kid. The best change my old pool ever made was banning them (besides USCG approved life vests). The rafts were almost never an issue unless parents stuck their kid in the middle and stopped supervising (which happened a lot and we'd yell at the about). Crappy parental supervision is the cause of most problems at pools.
      • keanzu 7y ago
        Somehow people don't realize the danger that pools possess. Swimming is one of the few activities that children engage in which can go so wrong as to end up in their death. I would suggest that it is borderline negligence for a parent to put a child in such a dangerous situation without proper precautions (supervision). I wouldn't let a small child I am responsible for go into a pool alone regardless of the presence of lifeguards. Especially not a wave pool.
• mimimi31 7y ago
  Why are there so many people in the deep end of the pool who don't know how to swim properly? Looking at some of the videos, it seems like the majority can't do a breaststroke and drowns if they can't dog paddle to anything buoyant within a few seconds.
  • rtkwe 7y ago
    Because public pools can't administer a swimming competency test to every one who shows up to swim and people underestimate just how bad they are and how quickly they go from fine to fucked.
• botwriter 7y ago
  Surely this should be renamed blacks can't swim...
• scoutt 7y ago
  Very interesting! In addition to what I saw in the videos, it could be interesting to learn how to spot the drowning person because it went unconscious or because of a cramp, etc.
• sq_ 7y ago
  Things like this give me so much respect for lifeguards, especially ocean lifeguards. Being a lifeguard in a pool is clearly tough enough; being in charge of a stretch of sand with people moving in and out constantly has to be absolutely insane. Especially since a kid could run in, get smashed by a wave, and be underwater in the time you spent glancing down the beach the other way.
  • dmos62 7y ago
    In beaches, I think often lifeguards rely upon being summoned and being able to get there quickly (beach vehicles). That's in case s/he has to cover kilometers of sand. Of course in such cases a lifeguard can't help with the Instictive Drowning Response: as the article points out, if you're affected by IDR you can hold out only 20-60 seconds.
    • ben7799 7y ago
      Those are often places that aren't really fully staffed. If the place is fully staffed and well managed the beach vehicles shouldn't be needed cause the lifeguards should be close enough to not need them. Most places I've seen ATVs in use the ATVs were being used by volunteers who were not lifeguards but watch the beach and call the coast guard/lifeguards on the phone if there is an emergency. The main beach I see this at is ultra dangerous with cold water, dangerous undertows, thousands of harbor seals in the water, and now has occasional great white sharks hunting the seals! Making a beach safe enough requires a lot of well trained lifeguards. Not many beaches are ever staffed like that. If it's dangerous enough some of the guards might need to be in the water on personal watercraft. Usually I've only seen this in super dangerous surfing locations though. A full lifeguard training program also typically contains training on using a rescue board which is basically like a surfboard and can be super useful in ocean surf. Baywatch was always super funny.. they carried Rescue Buoys which were near obsolete in favor of Rescue Tubes by the 90s. (The rescue tube is flexible and can be clipped into a circle once you reach the victim.) But the scenes on Baywatch would have realistically often have been done with both a rescue buoy + a rescue board. Ocean surf is super dangerous, water temps can be dangerous at the ocean. Then in some places you've got sharks, jellyfish, coral reefs. It's super intimidating compared to working a pool.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• bane 7y ago
  There's a youtube channel of these videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw For those not deeply familiar with U.S. structural issues regarding race, a random viewing of the video will show the unfortunately, the victim/rescued person is likely to be African-American. The reasons for this are complex and sad. Anecdotally, as a child, my family wasn't well off (and at least once homeless), and for a while lived in a lower class urban neighborhood that just happened to have a nice public pool. However, I know that my swimming education started as a toddler with my mother taking me to the local recreation center for early swim classes. Later when I was maybe 6 or 7 my older brother, a champion high school swimmer, further reinforced this until I was very comfortable in the water and had no problems even at the bottom of the deepest parts of the pool. All through my early, middle and high school years I had countless opportunities to swim, and to learn new skills around water. When I was 17 I could easily complete a mile-long endurance swim, or pull a bucket of rocks 20 feet up off the bottom of a pitch black lake. My African-American friends, starting way back at that housing complex, had no such similar experience. I remember long summer days with my friends teaching our black friends to swim so we could have more fun in the pool as a group. As children, it wasn't entirely unusual that one of us kids couldn't swim, as maybe their parents just hadn't gotten around to teaching them, so we took it upon ourselves -- never really noticing the pattern that only our black friends hadn't learned to swim yet. What we didn't understand is that most of their parents would never teach them, as many of them in fact couldn't swim either or discouraged it for various reasons -- creating a generational problem. Now, older, I've come to see and understand the sadness of the situation and hope it continues to be addressed in a more systematic way. Please, if you can't swim, learn to. Teach your children or have your children taught. Water sports are tons of fun, but your safety is mostly on your ability to swim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjC2Ucpr__E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjC2Ucpr__E https://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for-drowning https://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for-drowning https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11172054 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11172054
  • ben7799 7y ago
    This is a great response. When I was a Water Safety Instructor I spent part of my time teaching at a special inner city program that was designed to try and counteract the disadvantages you are discussing. Another place I worked was in a very privileged town at a very large country club. They did a lot of corporate events where the pool was hired out by a company for their party. We would never get through corporate events without multiple rescues if the company had a lot of employees who lived in the city without access to pools & swim lessons.
• Munksgaard 7y ago
  How come no one has commented on the fact that most of these videos include someone falling off an inflatable ring in the "deep end" of the pool while having virtually no swimming skills. It seems like a no-brainer to me that it's a bad idea to float out on a ring if you can't swim. Is that really common?
• mmhsieh 7y ago
  using 2x rings is unstable and can also cause drowning; flipping upside down while on a ring can also do it.
• iamthepieman 7y ago
  My kids wear type III PFD's until they pass their level 3 swim class. If I am swimming actively with them in close proximity they may go without. If I'm on the shore/side of the pool though, they have their PFD on. Armbands and toy flotation rings are not safety devices. Although me and my family love the water in all forms, going to the pool, lake or ocean is always a little stressful for me. I cannot have a thoughtful discussion with someone while my kids are swimming as my head is always on a swivel and my attention is 95% on the water. I will call my kids in periodically so I can take a break from the constant attention required. We do most of our swimming at lakes and ponds. At the pool, I will allow myself a little less focus since there are lifeguards. Fortunately I only have one left that needs to pass her level 3's.
  • chrisgd 7y ago
    Always on a swivel! It is so stressful.
• sebringj 7y ago
  Oh, I thought they were going to use me as a mechanical turk to train an AI...seems like a good idea...could have camera-based lifeguards that dispatch lil' float rescue drones.
• ratsimihah 7y ago
  Can we do that with coronavirus?
• amitry 7y ago
  Any thoughts/experience with systems like the Coral Manta 3000? https://coraldrowningdetection.com/ https://coraldrowningdetection.com/
  • lucb1e 7y ago
    In the videos from the "article", the pool guard jumped in while the person is still trying to get above the water. They never lose consciousness and get away with a scare. This system is "trained to detect people under-water" and in the demo it only starts beeping after about 6 seconds of no movement while the person is on the bottom of the pool. So the person first has to get exhausted, sink, stop moving, and then the system catches on that something is wrong. I guess if you get oxygen into the person fast enough, they can make a full recovery, but in the context of a pool this should not replace lifeguards. At home, this is better than nothing, though I wonder if actual (near-)drownings would go up or down because of the sense of security. Edit: the About page confirms it: > Without air in your lungs, your body sinks [...] For children, irreversible damage to the brain tissues typically starts to occur after about 4-5 minutes without oxygen, (for adults it is after about 3-4 minutes). $product detects when a person sinks, meaning seconds after she or he stopped breathing Detecting people that have gotten lungs full of water and are unconscious at the bottom of a pool is better than not detecting that, but it doesn't sound like pool guard or proper parenting can be replaced just yet, even if it might be a helpful last-resort aid.
    • amitry 7y ago
      Thanks. Yes, I was thinking of the Coral as a backup in the residential use case.
• pmarreck 7y ago
  Wow. OK, what the hell is a kid doing in the deep end who cannot f*ing swim? A large flotation ring is NOT a life preservation device!
• wjnc 7y ago
  How are things related to swimming education in different countries? In the Netherlands swimming lessons are a pretty basic parental 'requirement'. Former decades had school swimming, but that fell out of grace due to costs and liability issues. I've been taking my sons for lessons for what feels like ages already (about 1.5 years weekly, now twice a week, with about max. a year to go). At that point they are pretty good swimmers, even fully clothed including jackets and it's my responsibility to keep practicing. How is that internationally? It feels quite irresponsible to take children without training to swimming pools, but that might my local customs focus. Swimming is a hard technique to master though.
• japhyr 7y ago
  > Parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why. If you're a new parent and haven't heard this advice before, this is one of the key takeaways. It also applies any time young kids are playing out of sight. If your kid is in their room and it gets quiet longer than usual, it's a good idea to go peek in on them.
  • ldoughty 7y ago
    Also applies to puppies... (Especially if you have other dogs they typically play with)
  • opwieurposiu 7y ago
    If my 3yo goes into the bathroom and gets quiet, 9/10 he is making toothpaste/shampoo/toilet paper art all over the floor.
  • irrational 7y ago
    > Parents – children playing anywhere make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
• ben7799 7y ago
  Like others who commented I worked as a life guard and water safety instructor when I was younger. (Everything I am saying pertains to the US only.) I rescued quite a few children, it's hard to see in this video because the video quality is poor and the camera is at an angle that is worse than what the lifeguard in the video is seeing. Overall this victim is fairly active and should not have been very hard to spot in person for a well trained lifeguard. (And they did spot the child.) This is a weird video because: There are lifeguard(s) but yet the pool is full of non coast-guard approved tubes and floatation devices such. Most places with well trained lifeguards would not allow this. They don't work, can be more dangerous than no PFD, and they make it harder for the lifeguards to see. The worst drowning incident I witnessed involved a child in a tube who got flipped upside down and couldn't get out of the tube or flip back over. (I was not a lifeguard yet when I saw that.) I think things from my perspective are in a terrible state in terms of water safety compared to 20 years ago. Something must have changed with insurance liability, as most places just don't even have lifeguards. Resort pools I see these days are designed in a way where sight lines are so poor lifeguards/parents cannot even see children in the pools unless they are in the pool and stay within 10ft of the child. Very different than things used to be. Pool designers have reduced depth & eliminated diving boards resulting in a false sense of security. Meanwhile the pools are no longer even sufficient to be used for teaching up to a point where a person can be considered a swimmer. I just got back from vacation and the resort we stayed at had a pool which absolutely terrified me. I was 100% in lifeguard mode the entire time my child was in the pool, and the pool was so bad I couldn't sit in one spot and see him, I had to walk the edge of the pool to maintain sight lines. (The pool in the video is not like this FWIW) Fewer young people are supposedly physically fit and able to get to advanced swimming levels and pass tough standards like Red Cross. There are fewer places that even have Red Cross accredited programs these days as a result. Red Cross level instructors command high pay, and most places teaching swimming lessons these days are money making businesses that pay instructors near minimum wage and try to make the franchise owner wealthy. This is a relatively large change from non-profit Red Cross programs back in the day. Red Cross has always refused to act as insurance for pools/resorts/water parks, and alternate private organizations now certify lower quality lifeguards & swim instructors and we have new things like "Shallow Water lifeguards" that can be paid minimum wage. These alternate private certification orgs train to a lower level but do act as insurance so they're very attractive. I have a 7 year old, he's been through 4 private orgs so far. None have had Red Cross accredited programs. All of them have been super expensive but they're the only choice available. 3 of them did not have deep enough water and their instructors were not trained at a level for teaching to a full "Swimmer" level. None of the programs seem to focus on water safety and have strange practices like trying to teaching 5 year olds the butterfly and other high energy/low safety strokes without teaching elementary backstroke, breaststroke, sidestroke, etc.. which are more useful in emergency water situations. Most of the instructors I've seen teaching my child show poor enough form they'd have not passed a Water Safety course 20 years ago. The whole thing is a giant mess. I have been considering getting re-certified to take over finishing my child's swimming lessons, but the course is hard to take these days. Which also explains why not enough 16-20 year olds manage to take it. And there are almost no pools left to use that are not privately owned and have deep enough water. Also at least by the old standards when someone who was a Red Cross WSI calls someone a swimmer we're talking about a pretty high level. Someone who can't swim for 30 minutes to safety in deep water is not necessarily a swimmer IMO. Maybe standards have reduced. But that was a requirement at one point. And this is not something that requires elite physical fitness or stamina when you are trained to swim well. Some of the strokes are barely more physically taxing than walking if you're proficient. Non swimmers get a false idea about this because they mostly see competitive swimming which uses the taxing/fast strokes.
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• sys32768 7y ago
  I never got to properly thank the 15-yo lifeguard who saved my 7-yo from certain drowning in a crowded artificial lake pool. We turned away for what only seemed a minute and he was going under. He was slightly blue in the face when the life guard brought him out. The weird thing is he didn't fight or flail. He just sort of faded away into the water, and it struck me as especially weird that he didn't seemed scared at all after. It has haunted me ever since just how easy it can be for a child to drown. Many swim lessons for my child later, I still watch him like a hawk and insist on life jackets in any moving water conditions. Bondi Rescue, a series on Netflix about a team of Australian lifeguards, is instructive and entertaining.
  • viceroyshadow 7y ago
    I had never thought about it before where Aussie shows get shown in other countries. Over here it's usually reruns on 10 BOLD
  • kieckerjan 7y ago
    My mom used to tell how I almost drowned one time in a swimming pool when I was about five. I got stuck under a floating mattress of some kind. It definitely made a bigger impression on her than it did on me. I can (vaguely) remember the incident, and I don't remember freaking out or being scared of water (or mattresses) afterwards.
    • holbue 7y ago
      Might this be similar to the stress/shock introduced partial memory loss, as it often happens with heavy accidents, where the accident itself isn't remembered by the patient?
      • MS90 7y ago
        It could possibly be from oxygen deprivation, especially if they passed out, but without knowing the specifics of the case (did they inhale water/did they go unconscious) it's hard to say for sure.
  • 7y ago
• balls187 7y ago
  When I was 12, I went on a week long hike as a scout. We decided to swim across a lake, and 1/2 way through, I got tired, and tried swimming back, but couldn't. I remember having the presence of mind to yell out help before blanking out. My closest friend in the troop luckily turned around, swam back to and drug me back to shore. I was scared of the water after that, but some how ended up fighting my fear and earning the swimming merit badge, which for a weak swimmer, was no easy task. For his heroism, and because I had overcome my near death experience, we were both recognized for embodying different aspects of scouting. That incident in the lake inspired my friend to go on to become a life-guard. Both my kids started swim lessons in infancy, and my oldest son gets compliments for his swimming skills while at the public pool. Though the pool we use has life guards, I never for a second take my eyes of my kids. Maybe one day they'll go on to be life guards prior to college.
  • jacobolus 7y ago
    As a passable but not amazing swimmer I tried to swim not too far from an anchored boat to the beach while carrying my 1.5 year-old, and it was fine for the first 30–50 meters until he freaked out and started flailing his limbs in a way that made it really hard for me to keep his head above water while also keeping us both afloat and moving forward. Thankfully some other people were also going from boat to shore with us, on a raft, and were close enough that I could shout at them to come pick us up. I don’t plan on ever trying that again!
  • duncan-donuts 7y ago
    I want to commen just to make sure it's incredibly clear to never take your eyes off your kids around a pool. My youngest child nearly drowned in 2 feet of water with a ton of adults around. I never take my eyes off my kids around water now. It's too easy for something terrible to happen.
    • divbyzer0 7y ago
      Not just the kids. I was paddling with my 3 year old daughter by the shore while my 9 year old was playing with his cousin futher up the beach (and in front of the lifeguard station). My father-in-law (late 60's) wanted to join the two 9 year olds who had swam a short distance to a sandbar, and were in knee depth water. The old man got into difficulty, I dropped my daughter back with the family and asked my wife to have a look at her old man. She said he was fine, he's been swimming here for years. I recognised the pattern of short quick breaths and short quick movements. Each small wave was sapping energy from him. I ran to help and reached him quickly. People nearby had recognised the danger but were too afraid of stepping out of their depth to help a stranger. Ultimately, nobody on the crowded beach was prepared to take any risk to themselves to help (which I can understand). On arrival, I realised I did not know what to do. I held him above the water for a few seconds, which meant submerging myself for the same duration. He was now a dead-weight, who had lost all control. I repeated this twice more, until I felt there was a risk to my own safety. I swam/dragged/paddled/crawled with one arm the short (12 meters) to shore. I was close to becoming exhausted myself. Later that night over a bbq, the family asked why he simply did not turn around. The time between tiring, and panicking/exhausting he said was too short, and he was so close to reaching the sandbar. My wife did not believe he had been in danger until that chat over the bbq. He is alive today because one member of the family recognise the signs of drowning. Being inclose proximity to the lifeguard station which was manned, had no bearing on the outcome.
• nileshspatel 7y ago
  Is there active AI research ongoing to identify such at risk individuals in crowded pool from real time Video monitoring
• a0zU 7y ago
  God Damnit, now I really want that domain.
• ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
  the kid drowned under my watch, but i'm not a trained life guard so that's expected.
• quickthrower2 7y ago
  Discussion from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185
  • dang 7y ago
    Related, from 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835
• annoyingnoob 7y ago
  I once told a Life Guard at a public water park that his job is hard, that I can't even keep track of my own kids let alone all of them. He laughed at me. I still think its a lot of responsibility and hard to track everyone.
• cranekam 7y ago
  Very good podcast about drowning: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/how-drowning-works-29467262/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-269...
• sequoia 7y ago
  In Toronto, children are tested for swimming ability at each visit to a public pool. Children are given wrist-bands corresponding to their age upon arrival. If a child wishes to swim in the deep end, he or she may ask a guard to give them a swim test (swimming a fixed distance without touching floor or wall). Upon passing the test, the child is given another wrist-band indicating that they may use the deep end. Parent:child ratios are also strictly enforced for younger children. https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming-splash-pads/drop-in-swimming/ https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming-spl... (see "Important Information") The presence of children with no swimming ability in the deep end of a crowded pool in this video seems like an obvious recipe for disaster. edit: toys and floats are allowed in Toronto public pools, the kids have quite a lot of fun with them.
  • irrational 7y ago
    Same at our local pools in Portland, OR. They have to be able to swim 25 yards on their fronts and then 25 yards on their backs (without ever touching a wall) before they are allowed in the non-kiddie pool.
  • rtkwe 7y ago
    Wow I think the only time I've ever had a pool give me a swim test was for Boy Scouts summer camp where it's 75 yards front stroke 25 yards backstroke and then float. Then you get a little tag you place on a board and you always have a swim partner with periodic checks where everyone gets out finds their partner and they count pairs to ensure no one's missing or without a partner.
  • dpbriggs 7y ago
    Can also confirm this occurs in the Greater Toronto Area. I remember feeling very proud when I passed that test.
• kempbellt 7y ago
  After a couple of videos I quickly trained my eye to notice specific splash patterns peripherally and was able to spot it immediately in the rest of the videos. Seems like it would make an interesting CV/ML project
• parentology 7y ago
  So tragic. In college a group of friends were at the beach when one of them started drowning. Everyone thought he was fooling around, but by the time they realized the truth it was too late.
• SubiculumCode 7y ago
  This was really really informative. I realized my eyes were totally looking for the wrong thing, and also spent too much time looking at swimmers who were swimming under water..
• downerending 7y ago
  If you haven't seen this, read it. Really. http://drownproofing.com/ http://drownproofing.com/ Every kid should be taught this.
• johnwangdoe 7y ago
  Can computer vision be applied to this?
• m463 7y ago
  I was talking to a friend, and mentioned it's probably a good idea not to have a swimming pool, because it's one of the top ways kids die accidentally. However she said kids don't usually die in their pool, they die in their grandparents pool. food for thought.
  • TheKarateKid 7y ago
    As someone who grew up with a pool, it made sure that everyone in my immediate family was well trained on how to swim. It's usually guests that visit who have the biggest risk of drowning in your pool.
• ericjang 7y ago
  I'm a ML researcher: if you have video data/footage for this "spot the drowning child", I'd be interested in helping build a ML system for detecting this.
• arthurcolle 7y ago
  I almost drowned when I was pretty young (I wanna say 6 years old) might be older though but not by much, when we went on a pool trip when I was in day care or something, can’t really remember what grade you’re in at age six. I went to a deeper end and wasn’t able to grab the edge to pull myself up. A girl a few years older than I was was able to swim across and push me up. I remember there were two “chaperones” who were just a few feet away from the edge of the pool but they were both facing away. Terrifying experience, still remember it vividly. Parents kind of laughed it off but I definitely could have died. Definitely teach your kids to swim properly before letting them go to a pool unsupervised is all I’ll say.
• sizzle 7y ago
  This seems like the perfect exercise for computer vision and machine learning/AI to rapidly alert the lifeguard to the drowning child or deploy some sort of scuba robot flotation device that can get to the drowning person before a lifeguard to shave off precious second that can cause brain damage from deoxygenation.
  • mark-r 7y ago
    A flotation device isn't enough, often a drowning person doesn't have enough awareness or body control to grab it. You need someone who can grab the victim and pull them out of the water.
• bias_var 7y ago
  I believe this is where tech can be used as a tool to alert the lifeguards. I am seriously exploring building a real time video monitoring tool to alert potential drowning risks. I have the tech chops (video processing + image detection) and would be happy to collaborate if someone wants to join.