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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

• 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 ago
    Making fireworks that closely resembled pipe bombs (almost blew leg off)
    • pmarreck 7y ago
      oh jesus. yeah, exactly! I had a pyromaniac phase. Once set a field on fire. Things could have gone extremely worse.
      • razakel 7y ago
        Peter Thiel mentions in his autobiography that, out of the six co-founders of PayPal, four of them made bombs in high school.
        • keanzu 7y ago
          Tory Bruno, CEO of the United Launch Alliance, made rockets out of 80yo moldy dynamite. 6m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdPoVi_h0r0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdPoVi_h0r0
          • zipwitch 7y ago
            Moldy? Psh, that's nothing. The real excitement begins when you play with the sweat coming off the dynamite, like we did back when I was a kid in the 80s! Note: the above is sarcasm. "Sweating" or "weeping" dynamite is dangerous and you should immediately leave the area and contact your local equivalent of 'the bomb squad' to report it.
            • keanzu 7y ago
              Over time, regardless of the sorbent used, sticks of dynamite will "weep" or "sweat" nitroglycerin, which can then pool in the bottom of the box or storage area. For that reason, explosive manuals recommend the repeated turning over of boxes of dynamite in storage. Crystals will form on the outside of the sticks, causing them to be even more sensitive to shock, friction, and temperature. Therefore, while the risk of an explosion without the use of a blasting cap is minimal for fresh dynamite, old dynamite is dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite
      • ryandrake 7y ago
        Fellow 90's kid-pyro checking in. I remember when my father finally found my stash of black powder, metal tubing, various makeshift cannons, and flammable chemicals. Didn't really get in trouble--he was relieved it wasn't something as dangerous as weed.
      • glenneroo 7y ago
        Among destructive devices built as kids in the 90s, I think our crowning accomplishment was the Thermite we made as teenagers... only possible thanks to my friend who was somehow able to acquire a big block of Magnesium. I provided the Aluminium baseball bat ;) We got lucky that it fizzled out partway through (maybe from hitting dirt?), but his parents were definitely not too thrilled about the nasty hole in the concrete patio.
  • keanzu 7y ago
    So none of those activities resulted in your death? Or are you posting on HN from beyond the grave?
    • pmarreck 7y ago
      None did, this was a counterargument to the claim that swimming was "one of the few" ways for kids to die. There are unfortunately many many ways for kids to die.
      • cortesoft 7y ago
        Yeah, but drowning is way more common than the other ones. This is like saying, "Well, I am not going to wear my seat belt, since people also die from being struck by lightning" Just because multiple things are possible doesn't mean they are equally probable.
  • hutzlibu 7y ago
    Household: - various kitchentools, knives, fork - other tools, axe, hammer - (poison) cleaning stuff - climbing on the tish and falling on their neck - ... Yes, life is dangerous, yet sadly most parents today take the approach of avoiding all dangers at all cost. And of course you should not leave dangerous things around and make it as safe as possible, but how can one learn, how to deal with dangers, when all the slightest dangers are removed? That will only hurt later on. One have to play with fire, to learn how to deal with it. If parents forbid it completely, kids will just burn stuff on their own. I did ... and luckily I never burned anything down. But friends of mine ... allmost burned down a village.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • yCombLinks 7y ago
    Drowning far outweighs all of those categories for ages 1 - 9 https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_injury_deaths_highlighting_unintentional_injury_2011-a.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_inj... In the large majority of motor vehicle incidents the child is an occupant of the vehicle : https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812383 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
    • keanzu 7y ago
      I see they have a category "Unintentional Pedestrian, Other" unable to find a glossary. Possibly refers to being hit by MV while a pedestrian? Unintentional Poisoning seems really common for adults?! Misuse of prescription drugs apparently.
      • yCombLinks 7y ago
        That's also illegal drugs, IE opiod overdoses https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5605a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5605a1.htm
    • Defenestresque 7y ago
      The graph in your first link is absolutely fascinating. I found the number of "Unintentional Poisoning" and "Suicide" deaths especially surprising (due to the high numbers)
      • pmarreck 7y ago
        Jesus. Multiple types of suffocation for babies < 1 yr old
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • slavik81 7y ago
        Unintentional poisonings have rocketed up the charts in the past few years. It didn't used to be in first place. That's the fentanyl crisis you're seeing.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • kempbellt 7y ago
    The most likely outcome from all the scenarios you mentioned is that nothing happens. Kids do these things all the time and are just fine. Injuries occur occasionally, and even less frequently are those injuries fatal. A friend of mine supermaned head-first into a tree while snowboarding last year. The tree was probably a foot in diameter, and he was going fast enough to shake snow off the whole tree. What happened? Nothing. We all laughed about it and kept snowboarding. We are pretty resilient creatures when it comes to impact damage. Drowning though, completely different. Much like filling a car's oil intake with dirt and then having the engine immediately seize. If you start breathing in water, you're do some serious damage to your lungs and cutting off oxygen to your brain, and further inhibiting basic survival functionality, and quickly resulting in death, if not remedied immediately.
• vasco 7y ago
  It depends on the child's ability. Plenty of kids were swimming by themselves in the ocean at 8 or younger because they had a lot of experience or even doing competive swimming from younger ages. Most parents when I was a kid would set rules as too how far into the sea you could swim and that'd be it. I think this is common throughout the world in places close to beaches as I was.
  • _ph_ 7y ago
    I think the key is: learn swimming in an early age and then regularly go swimming. Swimming, not using floating toys. Children, who regularly play in the water - we did all kind of water-wrestling :) - can get extremely proficient at it.
    • jschwartzi 7y ago
      Yeah I’m taking swimming lessons as an adult after totally failing to retain what I was taught as a child. You have to practice and play in the water constantly to develop any proficiency. To get a child to do that means they have to not be afraid of the water.
  • Swizec 7y ago
    Can confirm, grew up near the sea, was free diving for shiny rocks and shells by 7 or 8 and would spend hours in the water every day of vacation. Parents had to basically drag me out so I wouldn’t starve.
• killjoywashere 7y ago
  > I wouldn't let a small child I am responsible for go into a pool alone You would. Let me give you the scenario: you're home alone with the three kids, you've been chasing them around, doing laundry, cleaning up spilled grape juice, telling Jenny to stop cutting Tommy's hair, etc. Finally, you think everyone is down for a nap. You turn on the game. 5 minutes later, 5 minutes, you think "It's too quiet...". You get up and walk around for a couple minutes to find 4 year-old Sally's door open. No Sally. Where's Sally? Sprint around the house, run down to the kitchen, look in the back yard, and she's face down in the pool. You immediately get her out, desperate. You realize you have to separate from her to call 911. She's been unaccounted for by now for 12 minutes. The paramedics get a breath back, but anoxic brain injury has set in. She dies, tubes in every orifice, 3 days later. I have seen this play out more than once. My parents had a pool. I was a lifeguard, have made rescues. I was also on swim team, I'm in the Navy now, and I'm a physician. I surf, I dive, I do open ocean swimming and triathlons. I've helped rescue a diver in pulmonary edema. I think I wouldn't leave my kid unattended, but I know I might. I've met the parents. They wouldn't let a small child go into a pool alone either.
  • lacker 7y ago
    I don't have a pool, thus solving this problem.
    • reaperducer 7y ago
      I suppose you also avoid getting mugged by never leaving your room, thus solving this problem.
    • strbean 7y ago
      Until someone breaks into your backyard and sets up a kiddy pool, and your toddler goes and falls into it!
  • keanzu 7y ago
    I have a pool. I have a fence. A friend's son was visiting, also four years old, vanished for just a second and suddenly I thought Oh god, the pool. Sure enough there he was stuck outside the fence trying to get to the pool but frustrated that the latching mechanism can only be operated by someone at least 5 feet tall. I wouldn't let a small child go into a pool alone. Pool safety is life and death. Get a fence.
• gowld 7y ago
  Swimming is weird, right? Imagine if whenever you took a step outside you had to remember to put your foot back down or else you'd drift off into the vacuum of space. You could jump and fly around like a balloon but if you went too high you could never get back down. Swimming is that but upside-down.