[Vamooska]

Nigel, I shall venture into the brink holding only this rubber truck tire liner only to let it go whilst I hit the water. Gadzooks....if I were only seven more feet taller. Tell mum she did a terrible job.

[mothmon]

I guess they don't have lifeguards at public pools in the turd world

[philovan]

Originally Posted by feb1199 ↗

Because he was an adolescent !
That’s your answer
When you are about to drown you lose sense of direction, your body stiffens, all you think about is taking that breath of air, not to mention you go on panic mode
There’s a lot of should’ve could’ves but easier said than done
They were all kids, except for the moron casually walking towards the end of the video

No, his being an "adolescent" (an artificial term of late Western culture) is not an answer. Any non swimmer, at any age, who gets himself into such a predicament may go into a panic mode.

Your criticism of the man walking at the end of the video is utterly unfounded. There is no reason to believe that he had observed the preceding struggles of the drowned person.

[philovan]

Originally Posted by TypeOnegative ↗

Here’s a lifesaving technique to teach your children who cannot swim. Blow out all the air in your body and sink to the bottom of the pool, when your feet touch the ground jump as hard as you can, taking a deep breath in when your head breaks the surface. Repeat this until you are in shallow water or can grab the side of the pool. I’ve taught this to kids 3 and up. It’s very easy to do. Sometimes it takes more than ten jumps but eventually you will make it to where you can touch. It’s energy efficient. You won’t tire out like you will active drowning. It’ll also help you learn to swim much faster because you’ll no longer be afraid of going in a bit too deep.

I genuinely wish more adults would take the time to teach this to children during the summer. It’s so much faster than teaching them to swim. It’ll also save you if you get tired of swimming and can’t keep yourself above water anymore. Sink, jump, breathe, repeat. Please teach your kids this very simple lifesaving thing.

That only works if you're not in too deep. If you jump in where it is way over your head, you have no chance of jumping up to the surface for air.

[TypeOnegative]

Originally Posted by philovan ↗

That only works if you're not in too deep. If you jump in where it is way over your head, you have no chance of jumping up to the surface for air.

I first learned this technique from observing a four year old girl who was in 6 ft deep water. She was about 38” in height. The was twice the depth of her height.

Nationally, more than 25% of drownings occur in water that is 3 ft or less. Most drowning don’t occur because of a lack of ability or because safety is out of reach, they happen because of fear induced panic.

The reason for teaching children, and adults, this technique is two-fold. One, because most drownings happen in water where this technique is an adequate way to reach safety, and two because it will teach people not to panic in the water. You can spend all day arguing that this won’t help in a lake or ocean, but the kid in this video wasn’t in either of those. He was in a public pool and in shallow water. Also, the vast majority of drownings happen at home in privately owned pools, of which most don’t have dive tanks and don’t graduate more than 6 ft. So, this technique is very very effective and should be taught to everyone. It can even help an expert swimmer who gets tired or winded. No need to criticize. It saves lives.

[felixhelix420]

Well, I guess he's not a witch.

[philovan]

Originally Posted by TypeOnegative ↗

I first learned this technique from observing a four year old girl who was in 6 ft deep water. She was about 38” in height. The was twice the depth of her height.

Nationally, more than 25% of drownings occur in water that is 3 ft or less. Most drowning don’t occur because of a lack of ability or because safety is out of reach, they happen because of fear induced panic.

The reason for teaching children, and adults, this technique is two-fold. One, because most drownings happen in water where this technique is an adequate way to reach safety, and two because it will teach people not to panic in the water. You can spend all day arguing that this won’t help in a lake or ocean, but the kid in this video wasn’t in either of those. He was in a public pool and in shallow water. Also, the vast majority of drownings happen at home in privately owned pools, of which most don’t have dive tanks and don’t graduate more than 6 ft. So, this technique is very very effective and should be taught to everyone. It can even help an expert swimmer who gets tired or winded. No need to criticize. It saves lives.

Absolutely true, and no criticism intended. I merely pointed out that it does have its limitations.
Something systematic, that one can focus on, helps ward off panic. In the deep water past the breakers (where there is a steep drop off instead of a gentle slope) I focus on floating on my back and paddling leisurely with my arms if I am tired and don't want to fight the waves at the time. It is also good to know how to deal with rip currents. While they may be too powerful to overcome via a direct attack, they are usually narrow as well. Float and paddle parallel to the shore until you get past the strong current, and then swim toward the beach.

[scorpion9]

Blow out all the air in your body and sink to the bottom of the pool, when your feet touch the ground jump as hard as you can, taking a deep breath in when your head breaks the surface

This is actually something that I've done...and maybe even saved my life when I was a kid. I was playing in a pond and started slipping towards the middle( the bottom was slippery, muddy and at quite steep angle ). When I went under, I jumped to get air. Once I got to the point of not reaching the surface anymore...i let some of the air out and ...just walked underwater, back to the shallow side.

[odoylerules88]

It’s too bad. The body naturally floats in water but people who drown are too panicky.

[TypeOnegative]

Originally Posted by philovan ↗

Absolutely true, and no criticism intended. I merely pointed out that it does have its limitations.
Something systematic, that one can focus on, helps ward off panic. In the deep water past the breakers (where there is a steep drop off instead of a gentle slope) I focus on floating on my back and paddling leisurely with my arms if I am tired and don't want to fight the waves at the time. It is also good to know how to deal with rip currents. While they may be too powerful to overcome via a direct attack, they are usually narrow as well. Float and paddle parallel to the shore until you get past the strong current, and then swim toward the beach.

In a past life (it feels like) I used to lifeguard. The bouncing method, in swimming pools, was good just because it required no prior skill and anyone could do it regardless of age or shape.

I’ve done the whole ocean thing and white water rapids thing, the more dangerous stuff myself. But never instructed on it or had to deal with an emergency in those kinds of waters.

The lake near me had had two fatal drownings in the last month. Both were preventable and both had witnesses who basically did nothing. One actually had witnesses that were worse than nothing. My wife and I were out to eat on a restaurant that’s on the lake. We were on the patio dock. Someone went into active drowning on the other side of the lake and a boat of people left him there to come to pull up to the dock to tell the diners that someone was drowning instead of lending help. They had all the necessary lifesaving stuff but didn’t know it was on board and they were too drunk to use it or think about it. They just left him to die. He was gone by the time we got over there and was fished out a few hours later.

I love the water. Love living on it and near it. It bums me out when I see stuff like this because it’s one of the most preventable deaths and with proper training it’s easy to save lives in the water. The real crappy part is that just a minute of not paying attention is all it takes for someone to die on your watch. It may have been a lifetime ago, but man do I have stories. Thanks for the convo.