:Drowning does not LOOK like drowning." Summer PSA article - chillling.

[elehhhhna]

http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. This is an important article.

Thank you so much for posting it. Maybe a few children will live instead of not, because of this.

Highly recommended!

[MicaelS]

25. Agree 100%, thanks, I never knew this. n/t

[countingbluecars]

2. Thank you for posting this. n/t

[spin]

3. K&R Thanks for posting.

[slackmaster]

4. Every child should get swimming lessons in public schools

To the extent that available facilities permit it.

As a taxpayer, I'd be happy to pay a little more to provide that opportunity to poor and land-locked kids who don't have the kind of swimming opportunities we do here in San Diego.

Recommended.

[ecstatic]

29. I could swim and I almost drowned at a pool party

I wasn't a great swimmer but I had a pool in my backyard as well as tons of swimming lessons before then. I'm not sure how it happened, but luckily someone who knew the signs extended their hand to help me come out. This article is 100% spot on and it's important to note that even people who can swim might run into trouble.

[tk2kewl]

5. K&R - A Must Read

[Subdivisions]

6. Very, VERY, good information. A definite must-read ahead of summer water fun. n/t

[Octafish]

7. Thank you. MUST READ.

I was a life guard, 35 years ago. Wish I had known all that I just learned then.

Thank you, elehhhhna and Capt. Mario.

[Spazito]

8. Excellent, excellent OP!

I have learned a great deal from this article that I did not know before. Thank you for posting this, it is a MUST-READ!

Recommended.

[mike_c]

9. WOW! Everyone should read this if they spend time in water....

Excellent post!

[ejpoeta]

10. what a great article. i posted it to facebook urging all my facebook friends to read it.

[shireen]

26. me too! nt

[WheelWalker]

35. +1 !!!

[donco6]

11. "Are You Alright?"

That's what we were trained in SCUBA to do. If you can give the OK signal, (which requires voluntary use of arms), then it's pretty clear you're OK. If not - BIG TROUBLE! And you should get a big response.

[spinbaby]

12. Thank you

I just posted this on Facebook to help spread it around. Very important.

[Brickbat]

13. I almost drowned when I was a young child, and it was much like this article described.

Very quiet with little thrashing, and my parents quite close.

[SoCalDem]

22. Me too. Luckily I was only 3 and do not remember it.

I was splashing around in the surf with my alligator inner-tube thing and the next thing my mother saw was a wave taking me "away" & leaving the alligator tube behind... She could not swim and could not grab me in time. My father swam out but could not find me..

A woman came down the beach carrying me hollering "Niña, Niña, Niña"..I had "washed up" about 300 yards down the beach where the fishermen were hauling in nets...

[Brickbat]

24. I was 3 and I do remember it.

But as I said, it wasn't too traumatic.

[Laura902]

14. thank you for posting, everyone should be aware of the signs of drowning n/t

[Lance_Boyle]

15. This is what drowning looks like:

[lapislzi]

19. K + r

Everyone should read this.

[qb]

16. "children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why."

This should be taught to everyone who supervises children near water.

[ejpoeta]

30. i know as a parent, it's when they are quiet you always notice, not the noise.

it's always when they are quiet that you get worried. starting in 3rd grade here they start teaching swimming to the kids. i am grateful for that. we have a pond behind our house and i have always worried about it.

[Arkansas Granny]

17. Thanks for posting. I've forwarded this to everyone I know who has small children.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Not waving but drowning

Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

[badgerpup]

67. I remember this poem...

Very sad.
Applies to more people than I care to count...:cry::hide:

[lapislzi]

20. Just remembered: my grandma nearly drowned

At a family function many years ago. Dozens of people looking on. She just disappeared under the water. Bloop. Just like that. If my uncle hadn't had the presence of mind to dive in and fish her out...

[Poll_Blind]

21. Thank you. Kicked and recommended. It's a qucik read and worth it.

PB

[Canuckistanian]

23. Important info - All parents hould read this

Good article.

[skyounkin]

27. Agreed- thank you for the article!

[gaspee]

28. We've had 3 kids drown this week

In RI - most of them had other people in the pool at the same time it was happening.

[inna]

31. Does anyone know the stats on drowning?

The article says 750 CHILDREN a year, but how many people total?

I saw a really disturbing article on drowning in Russia yeterday, it made me wonder about the stats on drowning in the US:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x252852

[kirby]

73. Here you go...

* In 2007, there were 3,443 fatal unintentional drownings in the United States, averaging ten deaths per day. An additional 496 people died, from drowning and other causes, in boating-related incidents.1, 2
* More than one in five fatal drowning victims are children 14 and younger.1 For every child who dies from drowning, another four received emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.1
* Nonfatal drownings can cause brain damage that may result in long-term disabilities including memory problems, learning disabilities, and permanent loss of basic functioning (e.g., ., permanent vegetative state).

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html

[inna]

76. wow! Thank you for the info and the link! nt

[sce56]

32. That will be required reading for anyone coming on my Galleon! n/t

[scarletlib]

33. Learned something important today.

Thanks for posting this.

[FourScore]

34. Very interesting and important!!! Thank you for posting. n/t

[niyad]

36. k and r for this incredibly important article.

"disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the Department of Homeland Security or the U.S. Coast Guard."

personally, I don't give a DAMN what dhs OR the coast guard thinks about anything (what respect I ever had for the coast guard has completely gone, thanks to their subservience to bp)

[rucognizant]

37. Where is the Red Cross?

I took all their courses when I was a kid, including rescue. I have saved 3 people from drowning before I reached the age of 20. 2 were toddlers, but the 3rd was a girlfriend my age. I was taller, but we weighed about the same. THE BOTTOM OF THE LAKE DROPPED ABRUPTLY,..her head went under suddenly & she panicked. SHe tried to pull me under but I got behind her did the RC hold arm diagonally across her chest.....& since I could still walk on the bottom ( tippy toes)hauled her towards shore........
CPR training is prevelant, life saving in water, techniques should be as well.

[WheelWalker]

38. K&R for a lifesaving message.

[NutmegYankee]

39. I only get the comments. Where is the article?

[Beetwasher]

41. Yeah, The Article Is Missing Now

[NewJeffCT]

61. It came up for me with Firefox

just now.

http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/

[Locrian]

40. something not right with the link

I only can see the comments. The article does not come up. FireFox and IE.

[spanone]

42. same for me.....must have been removed

[AtheistCrusader]

43. His blog host doesn't have the bandwidth. Site taken down.

Repost here:
http://www.bookofjoe.com/2010/07/behindthemedspeak-drowning-doesnt-look-like-drowning.html

[1monster]

44. Thank you for that. I've just sent it on to all of my mailing list.. NT

[myrna minx]

45. K&R n/t

[dorkulon]

46. Thanks for this. I learned some things. /nt

[BlueJazz]

47. WOW!...I learned something very important today. Thanks!

.

[blaze]

48. Link working fine for me

Thanks for posting!

You probably saved a life today.

[NutmegYankee]

55. It came back up.

[msanthrope]

49. Thank you for posting this article!!!!! K&R

[alp227]

50. "learned what drowning looks like by watching television" TV=overdramatised

I read this article, and it does have a good point about breathing. When you're out of breath, you can't call out for help or move really fast, right?

[metalbot]

51. Wow - 50 replies and not a single call for banning pools

I wonder what the replies would have been like if you'd posted a link to handgun safety?

Strange given that household pools kill kids at a dramatically higher rate than household guns once you look at the percentage of households with pools vs guns...

[Divine Discontent]

53. pools aren't meant to violently burst through material/bone, like bullets are. I'd prefer we just

ban bullets... more logical.

that oughta get your gun heart a flowing! haha... j/k

[Chulanowa]

63. People drown in natural bodies of water, too

The day that someone gets killed by a feral handgun, do remind us all of thread and your dire warnings.

[malaise]

52. Must read

Rec

[undeterred]

54. A 30 year old woman went missing in Lake Mendota

here in Madison last week. One minute she was swimming and had a flotation device, and the next minute she was gone. She was with other people, but nobody saw or heard her go under, and its a deep lake. No body found yet.

[Faryn Balyncd]

56. That fits perfectly with what we WITNESSED on Memorial Day nearly 20 years ago:

On that day I took my 2 sons and 2 of their friends wade fishing off the Texas City Dike. The boys were all perhaps 11 to 13 years of age. Each of us wore a vest life preserver. It was a beautiful day, with redfish visible breaking the surface of the water. (Nevertheless, our fishing was rather unproductive.)

We were wading off a small sandbar/island, known locally as Mosquito Island, about 100 yards northward of the dike, and a few hundred yards east of the western shore of Galveston Bay. This is a popular fishing area, accessed by wading across a shallow underwater sandbar to the "island"/sandbar. (The water over the sandbar leading to the "island" is perhaps only 1-2 feet deep at low tide, and easily traversed on foot.) On the shoreward side of the sandbar, as one approaches Mosquito Island from the dike, is a deep hole created by eddy currents, which is a popular spot to fish, if not wading the surf beyond the "island".

After several hours without success wading, we noted that small croaker were being caught in the hole off the southwest corner of the "island"/sandbar, so we also sat on the sand fishing the hole.

At some point I was startled to note a SOLITARY,SILENT HEAD barely above the surface of the water, which then disappeared. It then surfaced again with no apparent sign of distress. I looked at the head, then at the fisherman next to me and said something to the effect of "What is going on?". I then yelled something along the lines of "Are you OK?" to the apparently non-struggling head, who made no response. The fisherman next to me then pronounced "I think he's drowning."

My approximately 12 year old son (several years later a beach lifeguard, and now a U. S. Marine) ripped off his life preserver and started swimming to the head.

What had seemed initially & momentarily perplexing was now quite clear, and, having visions of a drowning man perhaps being more than we, particularly a 12 year old, could handle, I demanded my son (sans life preserver) come back while I swan toward the head carrying the life vest my son had stripped off, figuring that this could be handed to the drowning man with little personal risk.

During this brief swim, the head submerged beneath the water a second time, then reappeared.

He showed NO OUTWARD SIGN OF DISTRESS or STRUGGLE until AFTER he was given the life vest, at which time he appeared to cough up a significant amount of water, and proceeded to gasp for some time.

While he hung on to the life vest, I drug him to the island/sandbar at the edge of the hole. When he emerged, he was fully clothed, wearing street shoes, and carrying a crab pole, which he had apparently been pushing down against the bottom in a failed attempt to keep his head above water after he inadvertently wandered into the hole (He was perhaps 20 yards west of the underwater portion of the sandbar which formed a 1-2 foot deep path to the island, on which he could see numerous people walking in the shallow water. While thinking he was walking toward shallow water, he had gone directly into the hole.)

We now for the first time noticed 3-4 friends of the near-drownee, who were on the dike about 100 yards away, and had been yelling as best they could to get our attention as they saw their friend get into trouble and go under.

After these friends waded the shallow water to the "island"/sandbar and were united with their friend, they successfully communicated, despite the fact that we had neither a common language nor an interpreter, that their friend was a non-swimmer. He was most appreciative, and for this we did not need a common language.




For me, the single most striking part of this memory was the fact that we suddenly saw an apparently non-struggling, non-verbalizing head, barely above the water, and that the strangeness of the situation caused all of us to be momentarily perplexed, seemingly frozen, a 12 year old being the first to spring in to action.

Had we not had the fortune to be present wearing flotation vests, it is not clear what would have transpired. (Of the numerous fishermen present, several had gear vests, but none that day, besides our 5, had flotation vests.)

This experience is the only time I have encountered a person in the process of actively drowning.

It was not what I would have envisioned.





(Here is a photo of the dike, taken from the base of the dike looking east into Galveston Bay. This photo appears to have been taken after Hurricane Ike. The sandbar known as Mosquito Island, if it still exists today, would be several hundred yards down the dike road, and 100 yards or so to the left.):

[mzmolly]

57. As someone who almost drowned, I can verify this. You can't catch your breath

so there is no scream. You come up choking quietly and bob back down. After this experience, I learned to swim, thankfully. ;)

[rpannier]

58. This is definately a very important article

I learned something important today

[dana_b]

59. thanks for posting this

great article - especially for people with kids!

[BobTheSubgenius]

60. This IS an important message.

People need to be able to take care of themselves in water before they even THINK of being lightly-supervised, let along un-supervised.

Learn DROWNPROOFING, not treading water. When I was in an Award of Merit program, we did both, and there is no way in the world I wouldn't use drownproofing, if the situation called for one or the other. I never put it to the test, but I bet I could drownproof for 10 times as long as I could treat water. Maybe more.

I'd be willing to bet that, even now, I could drownproof for several hours, if need be. It uses minimal energy and is SIMPLE to learn. I requires about 2 minutes of instruction and maybe 10 minutes of practice, and you don't even have to be able to swim, although being in the water without collapsing into panic is obviously essential.

Parents.....look into it.

[Chulanowa]

62. I must say, this article makes me feel much, much better.

Years and yearss ago my sister and I would go swimming at a creek behind our neighborhood. Well, one day I see her inder the water and I point out, "Hey, she's finally swimming under the water!" because we'd been trying to get her to be willing to get her head wet (odd childhood hangup, not the best one for a family that is constantly in and around the water) and then I noticed, well, she ws just sort of standing there in five-foot water... I did yank her out, and she coughed out what she'd inhaled and it turned out okay, but for the longest time i've been kicking myself for those several seconds of being completely and absolutely oblivious to the fact there was a problem.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

64. It's been close to 50 years, but I still remember my near drowning experience.

It was at one of the beaches in Connecticut. It was my first time at the ocean (OK, so Long Island Sound isn't exactly the "ocean") and I was excited just like any little kid would be.

I still remember making a running start out into the water and when I thought that I was far enough out, I jumped head first into the water. Or so I thought... what I actually jumped into was an unseen sand bar that I hit head first.

It wasn't enough to knock me out, but it was enough that I couldn't stand up or use my muscles properly. I still remember the panic as I struggled face down in the water unable to breath. The whole time I was wondering why my Mom or Aunt didn't do anything to help.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to me, I was able to regain control of my muscles and struggled back to shore. My Mom and Aunt said that I really seemed to be having a good time since I was waving and thrashing about while in the water!

They had no idea what was actually taking place until I told them. I came that close to drowning in front of a huge crowd of people.

[elehhhhna]

65. Our baby neighbor (5) stepped down one step too many in our pool last year

and we SAW her waving underwater , LOOKING at us, and figured out right away that she was in trouble. It was very quiet, creepy and scary. She was about 2 feet away from me so I just grabbed her arm & pulled her out. And this child can swim like a fish. But it was early in the season, & I think she panicked.

[elehhhhna]

66. ALSO IMPORTANT: Keep your kids away from pools that have gone green--

if they fall in you won't see them nor can you find them underwater easily. And do NOT swim at night in a pool without the underwater light on. Great way to slip under w/ nobody noticing.

[Tracer]

68. The "quiet" child.

After a cookout and swim in a friend's pool, I dressed my 2 children and sat down with the other adults at a table 5 feet from the pool.

Several minutes later, it went QUIET. My mother instincts kicked in and I saw that my 3 year-old daughter was underwater in the deep end of the pool. Panicked, I ran for her, but my husband got there first by diving in fully-dressed, and grabbed her.

Many years later, the memory still bothers me. Mostly because it was my fault that my attention had wandered and I had taken my eye off the kids.

[NewJeffCT]

70. It's very easy to get distracted for just a few seconds

I hope your daughter was okay. And, I know what you mean about it being quiet.

[Greybnk48]

69. Excellent article!

I posted this on my facebook page. This is an important read.

[redqueen]

71. Thank you very much for posting this. (nt)

[GreenPartyVoter]

72. Thank you for posting this! I have two very weak swimmer kids, so it's good to know what to

really look for when watching them.

[Stinky The Clown]

74. Wow

[BigD_95]

75. this article brought tears to my eyes

My son was at a indoor pool party and was only like 7. He got in the water and I always very scared with everything he does so like even at play grounds i was watching him like a hawk.

I saw him follow some older kids to the deep end and I already stated sitting up in my seat. Then I saw him start to go up and down just like that article said. I ran over and when I got there he just started going under. He almost made it to the edge enough that I was able to lean and reach down in the water and pull him up. He would have drown if I wasnt there. His mom, my wife was off talking. No one else there of about 30 adults saw or notice. He couldnt scream for help just like the article said. It makes me cry when I think about how close i was to losing him. I almost didnt go to the party but changed my mind because I know how my wife talks and doesnt pay attention.

please read that article. It happens so fast.