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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 incid
by _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 agoThose 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 agoAs 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 agoSomehow 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.
- pmarreck 7y ago> Swimming is one of the few activities that children engage in which can go so wrong as to end up in their death Climbing trees (fall risk) Climbing tall playground equipment (I broke my arm falling from a height of just 3 feet once, on one of those). Broken neck, etc. Playing in the street (cars) Bicycling (can get hit by a car, sigh) Trampoline (don't get me started) Exploring (falling down deep wells, etc.) The Gashlycrumb Tinies is not just a morbid story about impossible deaths. Living is dangerous, living young possibly especially so!
- buckminster 7y agoMaking fireworks that closely resembled pipe bombs (almost blew leg off)
- atoav 7y agoI grew up near a lake in the Alps and I am quite sure that any floatation device in Europe that is not safe for leaving your kids unsupervised has a big warning sign printed on the floatatiin device itself. An exeption were these orange things you strap onto a child's arms, and inflate, which they can't really remove by themselves.
- vict00ms 7y agoThose are called "water wings" in the US and the person you were replying to feels quite the opposite about their safety; the ones I've seen available for purchase in the states are easy to dislodge accidentally.
- sokoloff 7y agoThe ones which are just placed on the arms and not tethered to each other have a failure mode where they easily come off if the child puts their arms straight up. Unfortunately, this is also a common drowning fear response. In general, I want people to have full market freedoms, but I put those water wings pretty near lawn darts in terms of danger.
- OkayPhysicist 7y agoI'd call lawn darts safer, as the danger with them is a lot more obvious. Everyone understands that throwing sharp things at people will lead to injury. It takes a significantly more informed consumer to know that a product masquerading as a safety tool is ineffectual at best.
- mcv 7y agoAll of the ones I've encountered in Europe are practically impossible to dislodge once they've been inflated.
- kubanczyk 7y agoAll of the ones I've encountered in Europe have a butterfly-ish creature on one side and warnings in a dozen languages on the other side - not a safe flotation device.
- Nasrudith 7y agoPart of the reason for floatation devices is a transitionary measure to get them more used to and practiced in "preswimming" while participating and not simply wading or pool side clinging. They are just often misused - you are supposed to be supervising them when they are in the pool period and they only need deep enough water to keep their feet off the ground.
- falcolas 7y agoPersonal opinion, based off my own experience and teaching other children how to swim: Flotation devices have no part to play in teaching how to swim. Parents (or teachers) holding their children and teaching them how to float is step 1. Only after the child can handle themselves in water (float, know when to breathe) should they be playing with flotation devices.
- emacsen 7y agoI agree with this. I was very late to learn how to swim and only learned finally at around age 10. Previous attempts to teach me to swim used flotation devices. Without them, I was terrified of drowning. A very smart swimming teacher, seeing my fear, taught me to float on my back, first with her assistance, then without it. Once I could float, she taught me to swim backwards, froggy style. I was afraid even about that, but she said "If you ever find yourself unable to swim, just float!" and I felt confident to do that. From there, I was comfortable swimming on my front, because once again, I knew how to go on my back and float! Then the rest was simple skill acquisition. 30 years later, I wish I knew the name of that swim instructor!
- alistairSH 7y agoWe should clarify that PFDs (life-jackets) are probably good for young children and new swimmers. It's the floating toys that might actually be harmful. And one skill that swimmers need, but cannot really get with an float-assist device, is putting their face in the water. I watched an adult friend learn to swim, and this was REALLY hard for him. Crazy enough - he was ex-Royal Navy submariner, so he had passed basic water survival - he could float on his back, just couldn't do anything beyond that.
- angstrom 7y agoI could spot the person fairly easily, but that's either luck or because I can't swim, so I was looking for the person doing what I would be doing.
- pmarreck 7y agoPlease learn to swim. It's never too late. Plus, it's fun. Plus, it's classy. Plus, you won't be caught "in over your head" (sorry) in situations like this. Humans are meant to learn to swim IMHO. The instinctive response is just a "stub" that is expected to be built upon, similar to language ability and crawling->walking and other human things. (Humans don't naturally walk unless they are taught to, did you know that? Source: Sadly, a handful of humans were raised by other animals over the years, and none of them walked naturally when discovered.) When I went to Cornell, learning to swim was a mandatory requirement. If you didn't pass the "swim 2 laps" swim test they gave you right off the bat, your first assigned P.E. class would be a swim class. (Apparently, one of the large Cornell donors stipulated this as part of his donation. Possibly, someone in their immediate family had died due to lack of being able to swim.) You say you don't look good in a bathing suit? Swimming will teach you not to care. Hell, if you're heavy, staying close to the water surface is actually easier. And you can get great exercise WITHOUT putting the stress on your joints that pretty much every other exercise will do to you if you're heavy. (Note: I'm a bit overweight, so I get it. I get it.) Did I mention it's fun? If you're an adult, you will feel like a kid again. You say you don't live near a coast? Well, when you go on vacation and are near a beach, you can actually go into the water fearlessly! And surely, there's a pool of some sort nearby. Don't be afraid. Don't care what others think. Please consider it.
- namelosw 7y agoI noticed that too. The last try was the kid try to grab the ring in a hurry, but the ring is too big to grab he actually pushed it away. Seem to be really dangerous.
- alistairSH 7y agoMany of these samples are also in a wave pool. And crowded. I assume with all of the above, drowning risk is much higher in these pools. It's a shame that swimming/water survival aren't a part of school in the US. Knowing how to tread water and doggy paddle are valuable, life-saving skills.
- rtkwe 7y agoIt's partially because if you can teach them those skills you can probably also teach them to swim full stop. A big difficulty with that is most schools would also have to travel to get access to a pool. I've only gone to one school before college that had a pool and it was a charter school on a local college campus so they had access to that pool, some schools might have to travel 30m-1h to get to a pool if they're in a rural area.
- biztos 7y agoWhen I was a kid in the 70's in rural California, we were bussed almost an hour to a bigger school for mandatory swimming lessons. I don't remember at what age but it was elementary school, I think maybe 5th-6th grade. Several grades were grouped together. Most (all?) of us could already "swim" basically, since there were lakes and rivers near the small towns and kids usually got free swimming lessons around age 5. The bigger lessons were about the various (then) standard strokes, pool safety and basic lifesaving, how not to accidentally kill yourself on a diving board, swimming laps instead of just swimming around, etc. I absolutely hated it (too many strangers, why didn't we have our own pool, my endurance was crappy, I was afraid of the deep) -- but I'm glad they made us do it instead of letting us wimp out.
- rtkwe 7y agoI think it's something schools should do but the logistics of doing it is difficult. You don't want to do it for a whole gym class and you want more instructors available than schools have staff to provide so they have to work with some other group to get enough people to work individually with the kids.
- 7y ago
- arcosdev 7y agoIn most pools you shouldn't even be allowed in this wave pool unless you can pass a basic swim test. Most of the time that's a given with a kid under 12, but it is not entirely obvious (from the videos) how old the drowners are.
- trillic 7y agoMost pools they aren't. I worked as a lifeguard at a large public park in the Midwest in High School. We trained with many of the other large public parks in the area. The only flotation devices allowed are US Coast Guard approved lifejackets.