Identifier
Classification: Water Safety
Purpose:
Awareness
Reason:
Approaching Holiday Season
Drowning
Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
The
new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the
water.
A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight
for the couple
swimming between their anchored sport fisherman and the beach.
“I
think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife.
They had been splashing
each other and she had screamed but now they were
just standing, neck-deep on
the sand bar.
“We’re fine, what is he
doing?” she asked, a little annoyed.
“We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving
him off, but his captain kept swimming
hard.
”Move!”
he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners.
Directly behind them, not
ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning.
Safely above the
surface in the arms
of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”
How
did this captain know – from fifty feet away – what the father couldn’t
recognize from just ten?
Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help
that most people expect.
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.
If you spend time on or near
the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that
you and your
crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water.
Until she cried a
tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound.
As
a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story.
Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event.
The waving, splashing, and
yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is
rarely seen in real life.
The
Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D.,
is what
people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water.
And it does
not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving,
and no yelling or calls for help of any kind.
To get an idea of just how quiet
and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this:
It is the
number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind
vehicle accidents)
of the approximately 750 children who will drown next
year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult.
In ten percent of those drowning, the adult will actually watch them do it,
having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).
Drowning does not look like
drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine,
described the instinctive drowning response like this:
1.
Except in rare circumstances,
drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help.
The respiratory system was designed for
breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function.
Breathing must be
fulfilled, before speech occurs.
2.
Drowning people’s mouths
alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water.
The mouths of drowning people are not above
the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale,
and call out
for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale
and inhale quickly
as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the
water.
3.
Drowning people cannot wave for
help.
Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press
down on the water’s surface.
Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits
drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can
lift their mouths out of
the water to breathe.
4.
Throughout the Instinctive
Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily
control their arm
movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling
on the surface
of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements
such as
waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue
equipment.
5.
From beginning to end of the Instinctive
Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water,
with no evidence
of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning
people
can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds
before submersion occurs.
This
doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real
trouble – they are experiencing aquatic distress.
Not always present before the
instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long
but unlike true
drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab
lifelines, throw rings, etc.
Look
for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:
Head low in the water,
mouth at water level
Head tilted back with
mouth open
Eyes glassy and empty,
unable to focus
Eyes closed
Hair over forehead or eyes
Not using legs – Vertical
Hyperventilating or
gasping
Trying to swim in a
particular direction but not making headway
Trying to roll over on the
back
Appear to be climbing an invisible
ladder.
So
if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK – don’t be too sure.
Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they
don’t look like they’re drowning.
They may just look like they are treading
water and looking up at the deck.
One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you
alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are.
If they return a blank
stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them.
And parents – children
playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and
find out why!