[HN Gopher] Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
___________________________________________________________________
Spot the Drowning Child (2015)
Author : vinnyglennon
Score : 572 points
Date : 2020-03-04 10:57 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spotthedrowningchild.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (spotthedrowningchild.com)
| downerending wrote:
| If you haven't seen this, read it. Really.
| http://drownproofing.com/
|
| Every kid should be taught this.
| iamthepieman wrote:
| My kids wear type III PFD's until they pass their level 3 swim
| class. If I am swimming actively with them in close proximity
| they may go without. If I'm on the shore/side of the pool though,
| they have their PFD on. Armbands and toy flotation rings are not
| safety devices. Although me and my family love the water in all
| forms, going to the pool, lake or ocean is always a little
| stressful for me. I cannot have a thoughtful discussion with
| someone while my kids are swimming as my head is always on a
| swivel and my attention is 95% on the water. I will call my kids
| in periodically so I can take a break from the constant attention
| required. We do most of our swimming at lakes and ponds. At the
| pool, I will allow myself a little less focus since there are
| lifeguards. Fortunately I only have one left that needs to pass
| her level 3's.
| chrisgd wrote:
| Always on a swivel! It is so stressful.
| johnwangdoe wrote:
| Can computer vision be applied to this?
| sebringj wrote:
| Oh, I thought they were going to use me as a mechanical turk to
| train an AI...seems like a good idea...could have camera-based
| lifeguards that dispatch lil' float rescue drones.
| wycy wrote:
| It seems like spotting drowning children could be a good use case
| for computer vision, at least as a backup. The heuristics for a
| drowning child are pretty marked, but they're hard to spot for
| humans distracted by lots of other stimuli.
| Jaruzel wrote:
| But who would you sue if the computer vision didn't spot your
| child drowning?
| rezic wrote:
| > as a backup
|
| It'd be a tool that can warn the lifeguards in the event that
| they didn't notice the drowning, not the only thing that
| monitors the pool.
| zentiggr wrote:
| I think the more likely scenario is who wouldn't you sue?
|
| Even the camera manufacturer wouldn't be immune from
| defending themselves.
|
| Welcome to America.
| keanzu wrote:
| You wouldn't sue yourself as the parent/guardian of the
| child - you look around for someone, anyone to blame.
|
| When I took a 5yo to a pool which had multiple lifeguards I
| put her in a lifejacket and stayed within arm's reach of
| her. Playing in a pool is great fun but it is very high
| stakes. No way I am going to leave a child in such a
| dangerous situation and hope it works out. Making sure your
| child survives a trip to a pool is your responsibility.
| amelius wrote:
| I suppose you sue the swimming pool for not taking proper
| measures. They can sue the device manufacturer, but this is
| not of your concern.
| jmmcd wrote:
| Some more related research here https://www.sfi.ie/research-
| news/stories/ai/autonomous-lifeg...
| xythum wrote:
| Looks like this has already been done: https://swimeye.com/
| Hamuko wrote:
| But apparently only on the pool bottom.
| keanzu wrote:
| Exactly, seems a bit late. Hasn't serious injury already
| occurred by the time a person is motionless on the bottom
| of the pool?
| huffmsa wrote:
| Looks like it give you a different video each time.
|
| Lifeguarded during high school. It's hard, even in a small pool.
| m463 wrote:
| I was talking to a friend, and mentioned it's probably a good
| idea not to have a swimming pool, because it's one of the top
| ways kids die accidentally.
|
| However she said kids don't usually die in their pool, they die
| in their grandparents pool.
|
| food for thought.
| TheKarateKid wrote:
| As someone who grew up with a pool, it made sure that everyone
| in my immediate family was well trained on how to swim. It's
| usually guests that visit who have the biggest risk of drowning
| in your pool.
| rezeroed wrote:
| This is choreographed - I don't think the comments on reactions
| vs lifeguard reactions mean much.
| saagarjha wrote:
| They don't look very choreographed...
| rezeroed wrote:
| They do.
| cranekam wrote:
| Very good podcast about drowning:
| https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-269...
| ratsimihah wrote:
| Can we do that with coronavirus?
| balls187 wrote:
| When I was 12, I went on a week long hike as a scout. We decided
| to swim across a lake, and 1/2 way through, I got tired, and
| tried swimming back, but couldn't.
|
| I remember having the presence of mind to yell out help before
| blanking out. My closest friend in the troop luckily turned
| around, swam back to and drug me back to shore.
|
| I was scared of the water after that, but some how ended up
| fighting my fear and earning the swimming merit badge, which for
| a weak swimmer, was no easy task.
|
| For his heroism, and because I had overcome my near death
| experience, we were both recognized for embodying different
| aspects of scouting.
|
| That incident in the lake inspired my friend to go on to become a
| life-guard.
|
| Both my kids started swim lessons in infancy, and my oldest son
| gets compliments for his swimming skills while at the public
| pool. Though the pool we use has life guards, I never for a
| second take my eyes of my kids.
|
| Maybe one day they'll go on to be life guards prior to college.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| I want to commen just to make sure it's incredibly clear to
| never take your eyes off your kids around a pool. My youngest
| child nearly drowned in 2 feet of water with a ton of adults
| around. I never take my eyes off my kids around water now. It's
| too easy for something terrible to happen.
| balls187 wrote:
| Kids lull us into a false sense of security.
|
| Stories of parents turning the back for a split second, only
| to see their kid missing is the norm.
|
| A scary moment like that reaffirms what you said--it's too
| easy for something terrible to happen. I've experienced it
| too, just not in a pool.
|
| I'm glad your child is safe.
| dotancohen wrote:
| A family friend drowned to death at a public swimming pool with
| two lifeguards and his mother present. He was 11 years old at
| the time.
|
| Never take your eyes off your kids.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| That is terrible. If it is OK to ask... was there anything
| special about those circumstances, like was there a specific
| reason like he passed out first or got hit by something? Or
| was still learning to swim? Before I read this comment, 11 to
| me seems like an age where you can start thinking about not
| watching them, and when I was 12 I used to go to the pool
| with just friends.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Something similar happened to me as a kid, I decided to swim
| from our boat to the shore of the lake, got exhausted 100
| meters from the shore. Before going in full panic mode I
| remembered you can basically float indefinitely on your back
| with very minimal effort and did just that until I was calm and
| rested.
|
| Turns out our mandatory swimming lessons from the age of 8
| weren't as useless as I thought.
| irrational wrote:
| I think the skill of being able to flip onto your back and
| scuttle to wherever you need to go is more important than
| knowing how to swim (and I love to swim - I swam 2 kilometers
| just this morning). Unless you are in super cold or choppy
| water you should be just fine.
| scaryclam wrote:
| I have some very young nephews. As well as teaching them
| how to swim, we're teaching them how to flip over and
| float, just for this reason. If they can do that, and
| recognise when they're in trouble, then it might just save
| their lives one day.
| morgancmartin wrote:
| I can attest to this method. Similarly to the GP, at some
| point in my early teens while swimming at a small lake, I
| decided to try swimming across the lake (more of a cove) and
| back. I was never a great swimmer but I was confident I could
| make it because I knew I could just flip over and leisurely
| kick if I got tired. Sure enough, my arms started to burn
| about halfway across, so I just flipped over and eased the
| rest of the way.
|
| It's not nearly as fast as "proper" swimming but I'm sure I
| could keep it up approximately as long as I could walk. Maybe
| even longer. It makes for a great option in dangerous
| situations, and is likely a good fundamental technique to
| teach anyone just learning.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| Everyone should be taught this technique.
|
| Nethertheless: I did this in the ocean once about 200m off
| the shore (at that point I wasn't really in trouble and just
| wanted a rest) and the waves were too high and I ended up
| eating a lot of salt water and nearly choking and sinking. It
| put me in a far worse situation than had I stayed off my
| back.
| strbean wrote:
| This technique got me through Jr. Lifeguards. I would
| pretty much immediately get hypothermic in the ocean, turn
| blue and feel as if I couldn't breathe. I would float on my
| back and "jellyfish" - essentially flapping your arms in
| sync, sometimes doing a breast-stroke kick with the legs.
|
| If the ocean isn't too rough, and you conserve your energy
| for dealing with waves, this works pretty well.
| scoutt wrote:
| Very interesting!
|
| In addition to what I saw in the videos, it could be interesting
| to learn how to spot the drowning person because it went
| unconscious or because of a cramp, etc.
| nileshspatel wrote:
| Is there active AI research ongoing to identify such at risk
| individuals in crowded pool from real time Video monitoring
| a0zU wrote:
| God Damnit, now I really want that domain.
| sq_ wrote:
| Things like this give me _so_ much respect for lifeguards,
| especially ocean lifeguards.
|
| Being a lifeguard in a pool is clearly tough enough; being in
| charge of a stretch of sand with people moving in and out
| constantly has to be absolutely insane. Especially since a kid
| could run in, get smashed by a wave, and be underwater in the
| time you spent glancing down the beach the other way.
| dmos62 wrote:
| In beaches, I think often lifeguards rely upon being summoned
| and being able to get there quickly (beach vehicles). That's in
| case s/he has to cover kilometers of sand. Of course in such
| cases a lifeguard can't help with the Instictive Drowning
| Response: as the article points out, if you're affected by IDR
| you can hold out only 20-60 seconds.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Those are often places that aren't really fully staffed.
|
| If the place is fully staffed and well managed the beach
| vehicles shouldn't be needed cause the lifeguards should be
| close enough to not need them. Most places I've seen ATVs in
| use the ATVs were being used by volunteers who were not
| lifeguards but watch the beach and call the coast
| guard/lifeguards on the phone if there is an emergency. The
| main beach I see this at is ultra dangerous with cold water,
| dangerous undertows, thousands of harbor seals in the water,
| and now has occasional great white sharks hunting the seals!
|
| Making a beach safe enough requires a lot of well trained
| lifeguards. Not many beaches are ever staffed like that.
|
| If it's dangerous enough some of the guards might need to be
| in the water on personal watercraft. Usually I've only seen
| this in super dangerous surfing locations though.
|
| A full lifeguard training program also typically contains
| training on using a rescue board which is basically like a
| surfboard and can be super useful in ocean surf.
|
| Baywatch was always super funny.. they carried Rescue Buoys
| which were near obsolete in favor of Rescue Tubes by the 90s.
| (The rescue tube is flexible and can be clipped into a circle
| once you reach the victim.) But the scenes on Baywatch would
| have realistically often have been done with both a rescue
| buoy + a rescue board.
|
| Ocean surf is super dangerous, water temps can be dangerous
| at the ocean. Then in some places you've got sharks,
| jellyfish, coral reefs.
|
| It's super intimidating compared to working a pool.
| nickjj wrote:
| When I was about 10 I got stuck in the ocean once at a beach.
| Even without big waves I kept getting pulled further from shore
| and wasn't strong enough to break past the current despite
| being a decent swimmer (enough to pass various tests and get
| certified for some level of swimming from a local camp).
|
| I still have flashes of memories of looking back at the shore
| and it being quite far but not abnormally far. I just remember
| treading water for a pretty long time and having to signal the
| lifeguards with my arms. I'm happy they came eventually.
| amitry wrote:
| Any thoughts/experience with systems like the Coral Manta 3000?
| https://coraldrowningdetection.com/
| lucb1e wrote:
| In the videos from the "article", the pool guard jumped in
| while the person is still trying to get above the water. They
| never lose consciousness and get away with a scare.
|
| This system is "trained to detect people under-water" and in
| the demo it only starts beeping after about 6 seconds of no
| movement while the person is on the bottom of the pool. So the
| person first has to get exhausted, sink, stop moving, and then
| the system catches on that something is wrong. I guess if you
| get oxygen into the person fast enough, they can make a full
| recovery, but in the context of a pool this should _not_
| replace lifeguards. At home, this is better than nothing,
| though I wonder if actual (near-)drownings would go up or down
| because of the sense of security.
|
| Edit: the About page confirms it:
|
| > Without air in your lungs, your body sinks [...] For
| children, irreversible damage to the brain tissues typically
| starts to occur after about 4-5 minutes without oxygen, (for
| adults it is after about 3-4 minutes). $product detects when a
| person sinks, meaning seconds after she or he stopped breathing
|
| Detecting people that have gotten lungs full of water and are
| unconscious at the bottom of a pool is better than not
| detecting that, but it doesn't sound like pool guard or proper
| parenting can be replaced just yet, even if it might be a
| helpful last-resort aid.
| amitry wrote:
| Thanks. Yes, I was thinking of the Coral as a backup in the
| residential use case.
| sys32768 wrote:
| I never got to properly thank the 15-yo lifeguard who saved my
| 7-yo from certain drowning in a crowded artificial lake pool.
|
| We turned away for what only seemed a minute and he was going
| under. He was slightly blue in the face when the life guard
| brought him out.
|
| The weird thing is he didn't fight or flail. He just sort of
| faded away into the water, and it struck me as especially weird
| that he didn't seemed scared at all after.
|
| It has haunted me ever since just how easy it can be for a child
| to drown. Many swim lessons for my child later, I still watch him
| like a hawk and insist on life jackets in any moving water
| conditions.
|
| Bondi Rescue, a series on Netflix about a team of Australian
| lifeguards, is instructive and entertaining.
| kieckerjan wrote:
| My mom used to tell how I almost drowned one time in a swimming
| pool when I was about five. I got stuck under a floating
| mattress of some kind. It definitely made a bigger impression
| on her than it did on me. I can (vaguely) remember the
| incident, and I don't remember freaking out or being scared of
| water (or mattresses) afterwards.
| holbue wrote:
| Might this be similar to the stress/shock introduced partial
| memory loss, as it often happens with heavy accidents, where
| the accident itself isn't remembered by the patient?
| MS90 wrote:
| It could possibly be from oxygen deprivation, especially if
| they passed out, but without knowing the specifics of the
| case (did they inhale water/did they go unconscious) it's
| hard to say for sure.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I am curious, hope this is OK to ask as I have a 7 yr old...
|
| How would you rater you 7-yo swimming ability when this
| happened? For example could he swim 20 meters (~60 ft)?
|
| Also I might watch that Netflix thanks. I don't go to Bondi
| much but Manly beach a few km away is interesting. They are
| always yelling at people who are swimming in the dangerous
| current area and it takes several whistles to get them out. I
| usually give 'em a gentle yell too if I am there on a surf
| board :-)
| chillacy wrote:
| I almost drowned in one of these wave pools as a teenager and
| I had been swimming every summer in swim camps (so a decent
| swimmer).
|
| In my case it was because there were so many people in the
| pool that I could barely move, after struggling to breathe a
| few moments I had to exert myself to climb up someone else's
| inner tube to gain my breath. But I do recall spending most
| of my time barely above water and struggling to breathe.
| Could have gone very bad.
| abafazi wrote:
| It's funny because Niggers can't swim
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account. Posting like this will get your main
| account banned as well, so please don't.
| [deleted]
| kempbellt wrote:
| After a couple of videos I quickly trained my eye to notice
| specific splash patterns peripherally and was able to spot it
| immediately in the rest of the videos.
|
| Seems like it would make an interesting CV/ML project
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| pmarreck wrote:
| Wow.
|
| OK, what the hell is a kid doing in the deep end who cannot f
| __*ing swim? A large flotation ring is NOT a life preservation
| device!
| wjnc wrote:
| How are things related to swimming education in different
| countries? In the Netherlands swimming lessons are a pretty basic
| parental 'requirement'. Former decades had school swimming, but
| that fell out of grace due to costs and liability issues. I've
| been taking my sons for lessons for what feels like ages already
| (about 1.5 years weekly, now twice a week, with about max. a year
| to go). At that point they are pretty good swimmers, even fully
| clothed including jackets and it's my responsibility to keep
| practicing. How is that internationally? It feels quite
| irresponsible to take children without training to swimming
| pools, but that might my local customs focus. Swimming is a hard
| technique to master though.
| parentology wrote:
| So tragic. In college a group of friends were at the beach when
| one of them started drowning. Everyone thought he was fooling
| around, but by the time they realized the truth it was too late.
| minimonk wrote:
| One of the important lessons I learnt from a lifeguard is that
| movies depict a very inaccurate representation of drowning. The
| movies would have you believe that drowning is a violent and
| noisy event when in reality it is an inconspicuous and silent
| event. The victim cannot shout or call for help when they are
| struggling to keep their nose above the water level.
|
| Another important lesson I learnt that sometimes when someone is
| rescued from drowning, they are at the risk of secondary drowning
| which can occur during sleep after the accident. Especially, if a
| child looks very weak and tired after a drowning accident, it is
| important to keep the child under medical care for the next 24
| hours. Never take the risk of the taking the child back home in
| such a case.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| Do you know a single movie which accurately shows drowning?
| Ygg2 wrote:
| They had those in Baywatch, although they claimed to be
| caused by saltwater.
|
| But overall their message was the same, post drowning, go to
| hospital.
| Darkstryder wrote:
| Secondary drowning, while not shown on-screen, is an
| important plot point of the series The Affair.
| ensiferum wrote:
| Yeah this can happen because the bronchi in the lungs is
| covered with this "teflon" like non-stick coating that prevents
| the lungs sticking together when breathing out. When a person
| inhales water in a near drowning this coating might get washed
| away resulting in the bronchi to get stuck. This will reduce
| the breathing capacity of the organ could result in hypoxia.
| Therefore after near drowning supervision in a hospital is a
| good idea.
| econcon wrote:
| I never learned to swim. At age 14 I felt like someone pushed
| me into the river at noon time, sun was very bright and there
| was no one there but me catching fishes alone, I fell right
| into the river. I didn't drown I figured out how to swim out of
| instinct - I wonder how common it is. This is one of the least
| things shown in movies that some people can end up swimming on
| their own without having previously learnt it.
| [deleted]
| lonelappde wrote:
| Where did the pusher go?
| paparush wrote:
| Goddamn, the pusher man.
| fullstop wrote:
| > One of the important lessons I learnt from a lifeguard is
| that movies depict a very inaccurate representation of
| drowning. The movies would have you believe that drowning is a
| violent and noisy event when in reality it is an inconspicuous
| and silent event. The victim cannot shout or call for help when
| they are struggling to keep their nose above the water level.
|
| My daughter, when she was about 2, fell over in about 2 feet of
| water in a lake and it was completely and utterly silent. One
| moment she was there and the next she was under and reaching up
| at me, bubbles coming out of her mouth. If I had been even
| remotely distracted I never would have known that she had gone
| under.
| jakemal wrote:
| When I was a kid I was swimming in a children's pool in our
| backyard with my two younger brothers. One of my brothers was
| afraid to go under water. At one point, I turned around and
| noticed that he was underwater. It looked like he was making
| swimming motions as people normally do. I was surprised that
| he decided to do it, given his fear, and just watched him for
| maybe ten seconds. After some time passed I got concerned and
| pulled him up. Sure enough, he was drowning and I was just
| sitting there watching him.
|
| I learned that day how non-obvious drowning looks. I still
| feel bad about it to this day, even though he ended up being
| alright.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Most depictions of things in movies are like that.
|
| Films must show you something interesting, and watching
| somebody do trial and error painfully on a bash script for 6
| hours is not as fun as a fast pace keyboard murder while
| screaming "i just passed 3 firewalls" with beautiful animations
| rendering on the screen.
|
| If there is a camera, what you see is a lie. The difference
| between a national geographic documentary and cinema is just
| how big the lie is.
|
| It's a bit insiduous actually, because some parts of the lie
| are subtil: rythm, speed, dialogs, personalities, agenda,
| resources... But they look real enough to make our natural
| social mechanisms trigger, and the lie then creeps into real
| life.
|
| Like people now expect the police, the justice system, school
| or the hospital to behave in a certain way, and the reality is
| way less glamourous.
|
| The chances we actually find, or even search for somebody that
| killed you (if it's not very obvious) are very low, not to
| mention a simple theft or ass kicking.
|
| Most things are mondain and boring looking. That's why we are
| so fond of art.
|
| And drowning is like most things.
| fho wrote:
| Even national geographic documentaries are probably "lies"
| ... I just had the chance to get some basic insights in to
| evolutionary biology ... and boy is bloody mauling and
| devouring of prey just the tip of the iceberg.
|
| Intraspecies rape and infanticide is pretty common out there.
| (Look up the penis of drakes (male ducks) and why it looks
| the way it does at some point)
|
| Siblings competing for food with only a small percentage
| surviving.
|
| The female tit (the bird ... not what you think) basically
| cheats so much that there is a possibility that none of the
| offspring is actually of the male that feeds them ...
|
| The list goes on and on and on ...
| ksdale wrote:
| I remember reading about some sort of project that was
| analogizing the economy to nature and talking about balance
| and I nearly blurted out that there is balance in nature
| because so much stuff dies _all the time_. People who want
| to make the economy more fair naturally want to do it
| without the equivalent of stuff dying all the time. But
| nature is not a good analogy for that. Nature as a whole is
| beautiful and tends toward balance, but it comes at a huge
| cost to individual participants.
| allovernow wrote:
| If you ever watched Nat Geo tapes in grade school from the
| 80s, things were much more graphic (and interesting and
| informative IMO). Somehow Western society has become so
| sensitive to depictions of violence that even educational
| films regarding nature are effectively whitewashed.
|
| Our reluctance to produce informative graphic media has
| given people an unrealistically optimistic view of nature
| and life. This has warped social values and policy to our
| detriment.
| andrelgomes wrote:
| Crazy how this topic on drowning led me to your comment and
| led me down a rabbit hole where I am now ordering The
| Evolution of Beauty, Prum and The Handicap Prinicple,
| Amotz. Thank you for this comment
| fho wrote:
| Nice! "Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach, Alcock"
| and "Evolution, Ridley" were mentioned in the seminars if
| you want to put some more books on the list :-)
| notRobot wrote:
| > The female tit (the bird ... not what you think)
| basically cheats so much that there is a possibility that
| none of the offspring is actually of the male that feeds
| them ...
|
| Pretty sure "cheating" and infidelity are largely human
| concepts. That's normal and natural behaviour for many
| species.
| fho wrote:
| > "cheating" and infidelity are largely human concepts
|
| It is normal behavior, yes. But it comes at the expense
| of the cheated on party. The term here is "parental
| investment" and is roughly how much energy a party has to
| invest in the offspring.
|
| If the male tit builds the nest and provides food for
| offspring that is genetically not his it puts it at a
| disadvantage and it is definitely exploited by the
| female.
| notRobot wrote:
| Again, "exploited"? Using that word in the context seems
| very... Off. It's not like the female tit is choosing to
| "exploit" the male. They're literally programmed to do
| that.
|
| Think about it. In many species there is unequal parental
| employment. That's just how nature works. Is it really
| "exploitation" in the human sense of taking advantage of
| someone else?
| invisiblerobot wrote:
| >> Is it really "exploitation" in the human sense of
| taking advantage of someone else?
|
| Yes. Obviously. And whether or not the exploitation is
| "programmed" is irrelevant. After all everything is
| programmed.
| notRobot wrote:
| But. If we're observing as humans and it appears to us
| that the one creature is taking advantage of another,
| surely that's just our interpretation from a very limited
| understanding of their world?
|
| I have no idea where I'm going with this, but that
| phrasing still seems off to me.
| foota wrote:
| OT, but your usernames have a neat synchronicity.
| strbean wrote:
| Another one - pretty much all nature footage doesn't come
| with quality (or any) sound. Nature documentaries are full
| of foley sound.
| MS90 wrote:
| There was a video my fireman friend showed me a while back of
| two men drowning near a drainage pipe. There was a chunk of
| floating hardwood or something that they wanted for some
| reason, but neither could swim (I know, brilliant). The only
| violent and noisy parts of the incident was then frantically
| trying to swim back to the banks for about a minute. After
| that, they seem to lose all energy, go still, and sink
| shockingly fast, like rocks.
| conistonwater wrote:
| Is there still water in their lungs? Why doesn't it get coughed
| out once they are out of the water?
| mikequinlan wrote:
| The water (and chemicals) in the lungs irritate and damage
| the lungs, which causes inflammation, which causes fluids to
| build up in the lungs, which eventually causes suffocation.
| cVwEq wrote:
| _" Secondary drowning" is another term people use to describe
| another drowning complication. It happens if water gets into
| the lungs. There, it can irritate the lungs' lining and fluid
| can build up, causing a condition called pulmonary edema.
| You'd likely notice your child having trouble breathing right
| away, and it might get worse over the next 24 hours.
|
| Both events are very rare. They make up only 1%-2% of all
| drownings, says pediatrician James Orlowski, MD, of Florida
| Hospital Tampa._ [1]
|
| [1] https://www.webmd.com/children/features/secondary-
| drowning-d...
| sandov wrote:
| 1%-2% doesn't seem "very rare" to me.
| remcob wrote:
| Indeed, especially considering that this is "1%-2% of all
| drownings". It says nothing about how many people are
| suffering from this after a near-drowning and
| subsequently recover from a near-second-drowning. For all
| we know more than half of the near-drownings may end up
| with secondary symptoms.
|
| Also we don't know how many near-drownings vs drownings
| there are. Lot of good statistical quiz questions in
| here.
| frobozz wrote:
| Drownings are rare, I would say that 1-2% of something
| rare is very rare.
| jakemal wrote:
| Sure. But given someone has drowned, a 1-2% of something
| happening should result in serious precautions being
| taken.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Said serious precaution is monitoring by a person.
| dmos62 wrote:
| What kind of intuition do you have about 1%-2%? I've a
| crappy grasp of probability. I'd say 1-2% is like being
| quite certain that you'll experience this or that within
| 50-100 tries/repetitions. That sounds rare to me. In case
| of life or death it's not a risk I'd tolerate, but I'd
| call it rare.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Even with a 99% probability, there's about one chance in
| three that you wouldn't experience it if you tried a
| hundred times.
| dmos62 wrote:
| How does that work?
| saagarjha wrote:
| The chance you don't experience it after hundred times is
| 0.99^100[?]0.37.
| notafraudster wrote:
| Let's say you roll a dice with 100 sides. If you roll a
| 1, you die. If you roll anything else, you live. We want
| to know the probability you will die if you roll the dice
| 100 times.
|
| One way we could do this is look at the probability
| you'll roll it on the first roll... then the probability
| you won't roll it on the first roll but you will on the
| second roll... and so on. But that's a lot of math.
|
| The probability of an event (death) and its complement
| (not death) totals 1.0. So one way we can get the
| probability of death is 1.0 - the probability of life.
|
| Okay, so the only way you'll live if is if survive all
| 100 rolls. Each dice roll is independent (surviving the
| first dice roll doesn't affect the second dice roll which
| doesn't affect the third). So each individual dice roll
| has probability 0.99 of survival. For joint probability,
| we can multiply these together. The probability of
| getting heads on a coin twice is 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25. So in
| our situation here, p(survival) = 0.99, and 100 times
| means 0.99^100, to get the probability of survival.
| 0.99^100 = 0.36. 36% chance of survival.
|
| The probability of death is thus 1 - 0.36 = 0.64. 64%
| chance of death.
| sandov wrote:
| My intuition comes from other uses of "rare" and "very
| rare" in medical fields.
|
| "In Europe a disease or disorder is defined as rare when
| it affects less than 1 in 2000 citizens." [1]
|
| """ In the United States, the Rare Diseases Act of 2002
| defines rare disease strictly according to prevalence,
| specifically "any disease or condition that affects fewer
| than 200,000 people in the United States", or about 1 in
| 1,500 people. This definition is essentially the same as
| that of the Orphan Drug Act of 1983, a federal law that
| was written to encourage research into rare diseases and
| possible cures.
|
| In Japan, the legal definition of a rare disease is one
| that affects fewer than 50,000 patients in Japan, or
| about 1 in 2,500 people.
|
| However, the European Commission on Public Health defines
| rare diseases as "life-threatening or chronically
| debilitating diseases which are of such low prevalence
| that special combined efforts are needed to address
| them". The term low prevalence is later defined as
| generally meaning fewer than 1 in 2,000 people. Diseases
| that are statistically rare, but not also life-
| threatening, chronically debilitating, or inadequately
| treated, are excluded from their definition. """
|
| [1] https://www.eurordis.org/content/what-rare-disease
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_disease
| [deleted]
| parliament32 wrote:
| Right, but I'm not going to nearly-drown 50-100 times in
| my life. I'd definitely put this in the "not worth
| worrying about" category.
|
| Being a human and doing human activities carries a
| certain amount of risk. If we over-analyze things we end
| up either being too scared to do anything interesting...
| and if we start applying this "I"m scared of everything"
| mentality to parenting we fall into the "helicopter
| parent" trap which is even worse.
| rsync wrote:
| "Is there still water in their lungs? Why doesn't it get
| coughed out once they are out of the water?"
|
| No, it is not as simple as "leftover water from the
| drowning". Rather, due to the presence of the water in the
| lungs, which has been presumably expelled entirely, the
| interior of the lungs becomes irritated and inflamed.
|
| This inflammation process _produces it 's own fluid_ which
| will slowly fill the lungs and "drown" you - especially while
| you are prone, while sleeping, wherein the fluid pools along
| the entire length of the lung, rather than just filling up
| the bottom of the lung.
|
| It's a misleading term ...
| JdeBP wrote:
| An important lesson to learn in general is that television and
| movies depict very inaccurate representations _of everything_.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Including _sounds_ , which are almost universally added to
| the footage in a separate processing stage, and have no
| relation to what has actually happened on the stage itself.
| grawprog wrote:
| Hence why every bird of prey ever shown in any movie ever
| has the call of a red tailed hawk.
| fenwick67 wrote:
| And every jungle is full of kookaburras
| irrational wrote:
| Hold on, pornhub isn't a documentary service?
| jwally wrote:
| War footage on the history channel was kind of ruined when I
| realized this.
| oauea wrote:
| Why is there no progress bar? Do you really expect me to sit
| through several minutes of video of nothing happening just to
| prove a point?
|
| Finally I saw the child go down, so I wanted to rewind a few
| seconds to see what happened there. Nope, not allowed!
| keanzu wrote:
| The videos are on Youtube, you can click the Youtube logo in
| the bottom right and gain full control.
|
| The site has an overlay where you can click on the drowning
| person and find out if you were correct. Hence the other
| controls are hidden.
| [deleted]
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Discussion from 2015:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185
| dang wrote:
| Related, from 2018:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769
|
| 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755
|
| 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237
|
| 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835
| mosselman wrote:
| Jesus, looking at this and reading a few of the comments has me
| well scared of the dangers of water again. Good reminder, but
| always chilling.
| keanzu wrote:
| A healthy respect for pools is an excellent idea. There are few
| activities a child might reasonably engage in where it could go
| so wrong it might end up in their death. Swimming is one.
| bane wrote:
| There's a youtube channel of these videos:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw
|
| For those not deeply familiar with U.S. structural issues
| regarding race, a random viewing of the video will show the
| unfortunately, the victim/rescued person is likely to be African-
| American. The reasons for this are complex and sad.
|
| Anecdotally, as a child, my family wasn't well off (and at least
| once homeless), and for a while lived in a lower class urban
| neighborhood that just happened to have a nice public pool.
| However, I know that my swimming education started as a toddler
| with my mother taking me to the local recreation center for early
| swim classes. Later when I was maybe 6 or 7 my older brother, a
| champion high school swimmer, further reinforced this until I was
| very comfortable in the water and had no problems even at the
| bottom of the deepest parts of the pool. All through my early,
| middle and high school years I had countless opportunities to
| swim, and to learn new skills around water. When I was 17 I could
| easily complete a mile-long endurance swim, or pull a bucket of
| rocks 20 feet up off the bottom of a pitch black lake.
|
| My African-American friends, starting way back at that housing
| complex, had no such similar experience. I remember long summer
| days with my friends teaching our black friends to swim so we
| could have more fun in the pool as a group. As children, it
| wasn't entirely unusual that one of us kids couldn't swim, as
| maybe their parents just hadn't gotten around to teaching them,
| so we took it upon ourselves -- never really noticing the pattern
| that _only_ our black friends hadn 't learned to swim yet. What
| we didn't understand is that most of their parents would _never_
| teach them, as many of them in fact couldn 't swim either or
| discouraged it for various reasons -- creating a generational
| problem.
|
| Now, older, I've come to see and understand the sadness of the
| situation and hope it continues to be addressed in a more
| systematic way.
|
| Please, if you can't swim, learn to. Teach your children or have
| your children taught. Water sports are tons of fun, but your
| safety is mostly on your ability to swim.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjC2Ucpr__E
|
| https://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for-drowning
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11172054
| rideontime wrote:
| It's possible that their parents or grandparents would have
| been beaten for trying to swim at public pools.
|
| https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=902136...
| sguav wrote:
| I was wondering why the one in danger was always black child,
| in every video I watched! I never thought that this could be
| the reason, but your comment is indeed insightful, thanks
| ben7799 wrote:
| This is a great response. When I was a Water Safety Instructor
| I spent part of my time teaching at a special inner city
| program that was designed to try and counteract the
| disadvantages you are discussing.
|
| Another place I worked was in a very privileged town at a very
| large country club. They did a lot of corporate events where
| the pool was hired out by a company for their party. We would
| never get through corporate events without multiple rescues if
| the company had a lot of employees who lived in the city
| without access to pools & swim lessons.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| What's the point of this? Should I be surprised that I do a poor
| job at watching a camera footage compared to a person being
| present there with all sensory inputs, context, trained to spot
| drowning people?
| rtkwe wrote:
| It shows what actually drowning looks like which is quiet and
| very predictable movements that don't match how most people
| expect it to look from movies/tv.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Then I think this page does a poor job and overly dramatic.
| It took me 4 attempts to see the popover text box.
| amelius wrote:
| The point is that most people think that it is easy to spot
| drowning people.
| philshem wrote:
| Rates of drowning in Europe[0][1] vary by more than an order of
| magnitude. I'd be curious about compulsory swimming lessons in
| schools, as is done here in Switzerland[2], and its correlation
| to the rate of drowning.
|
| [0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-
| news/-/D...
|
| [1] http://78.136.22.110/europe/info/switzerland/switzerland-
| dro...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_lessons#Switzerland
| alistairSH wrote:
| Interestingly, Iceland has compulsory swimming lessons (not to
| mention, pools are part of the national identity). But, their
| drowning rate is relatively high, based on the first link. Of
| course, they also have a fair number of tourist drownings on
| their beaches - I don't know if there are enough of those to
| skew results.
| silvestrov wrote:
| Denmark: almost everybody lives less than 30 miles from the Sea
| (or big lakes). More than 80% get swimming lessons in school.
|
| Not being able to swim is viewed as "having a bit of a
| handicap" that you should fix as soon as possible.
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| Netherlands reporting in: swimming lessons are spread over
| three competency group, and as far as I know, nearly all
| primary schools take time in the curriculum to do at least the
| first two competency levels before the pupils turn 7 or 8.
| wichert wrote:
| That might depend on the region. Here (Leiden) it is not
| common for schools to offer swimming lessons. The vast vast
| majority (I have no numbers, but I would expect it to be
| close to 100%) of children do take swimming lessons from age
| 4. Most of them until they reach the third (C) exam, which
| tends to take about 1.5 years.
| mcv wrote:
| A lot of primary schools don't do swimming lessons anymore.
| Fortunately nearly all Dutch kids get swimming lessons at a
| pool, generally before they'd get them at school anyway.
| Though that can cause problems for the one immigrant kid that
| doesn't have a diploma. There have been at least two
| drownings during school swimming lessons in recent years.
| philshem wrote:
| Thanks for your answer. I posted my question to the open data
| stack exchange site[0]. If there isn't an existing dataset,
| maybe we can create one country by country.
|
| [0] https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/16182/1511
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| Some data on the netherlands from 2014: https://www.scp.nl/
| dsresource?objectid=6185de0a-e909-4202-99...
| wichert wrote:
| Interesting - that data does not quite match my
| experience; I was expecting a larger percentage to have B
| or C level diplomas. I wonder if that is due to region
| (more water and lakes on the west and north), (ethnic)
| background or something else.
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| Age and ethnic background, I think.
| japhyr wrote:
| > Parents - children playing in the water make noise. When they
| get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
|
| If you're a new parent and haven't heard this advice before, this
| is one of the key takeaways. It also applies any time young kids
| are playing out of sight. If your kid is in their room and it
| gets quiet longer than usual, it's a good idea to go peek in on
| them.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| If my 3yo goes into the bathroom and gets quiet, 9/10 he is
| making toothpaste/shampoo/toilet paper art all over the floor.
| irrational wrote:
| > Parents - children playing anywhere make noise. When they get
| quiet, you get to them and find out why.
| ldoughty wrote:
| Also applies to puppies... (Especially if you have other dogs
| they typically play with)
| cafebabbe wrote:
| So many of them don't have arm bands? It's borderline criminal to
| allow untrained kids in a pool without wearing those.
| vegardx wrote:
| Wet suits and life jackets are much better options for kids
| than arm bands. Heck, in many places arm bands are banned
| completely. I think cost is one of the few reason why arm bands
| are still used, and perhaps that they are marginally better
| than not having any in some cases.
|
| You can get a great used wet suits for next to nothing, and in
| many cases the swimming pools have life jacket loaners. A life
| jacket with safety straps (between legs) are super cheap, and
| they are adjustable for better fit. Snug fit means they're less
| in the way. And they're harder to remove.
| chrismeller wrote:
| Admittedly it's been a while since I've been to a public pool,
| and only ever in the US, but there was never any such
| requirement. I mean even if they did ask "can you swim?" that
| doesn't really mean much, it's not like there's an official
| certification process... and either way, doesn't mean they
| can't still drown, so the lesson is relevant anyway.
| bluGill wrote:
| In every public pool I've been in the US they had a "shallow
| end" and "deep end". In the shallow water kids could easily
| touch the bottom and didn't need to know how to swim. The
| lifeguard between the shallow and deep end wouldn't let you
| in if you couldn't prove you could swim. It was always cross
| the line and the lifeguard would yell at your to swim across
| the pool (different pools had different tests), if you
| weren't strong enough you got sent back to the shallow end.
|
| If there wasn't a lifeguard the above obviously didn't apply.
| undineine wrote:
| European pools generally ask under children under 14 or so
| who go swimming unattended whether they have swimming
| diplomas. If you complete your swimming diplomas, you get
| stickers for your swim shorts to show you have completed
| them.
|
| Generally certain rides in water parks, like fast slides or
| streams will require you to have higher levels of swimming
| training to go on if you're under 14.
| watwut wrote:
| I live in Europe and never seen this.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I live in Europe and while we did have some kind of
| stickers for attending swimming school, I don't think
| those were something that you'd actual have on you.
| trissi wrote:
| For me and my buddys in school it was quite a thing of
| "pride" to have the better diploma's (there was a
| beginner one + bronze to gold) (this was around 2004)
| mcv wrote:
| The sticker or badge on your swimming trunks is something
| really archaic. I had one in the early 1980s, but I haven't
| seen them since.
| trissi wrote:
| I had one around 2004 (got it as part of swimming lessons
| in a german elementary school)
| rndgermandude wrote:
| I had such stickers on my trunks into the mid 90s.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| I remember I was asked a bunch of times if I had my "free
| swimmer" (Freischwimmer, Bronze)[1] by lifeguards when I
| was pre-teen in Germany, indeed. Tho, that wasn't something
| they did every time, more like spot checks.
|
| My parents were wise enough to enroll me in a course so I
| got my "early swimmer" (seahorse, Seepferdchen) training by
| age 6; that doesn't make you into a good swimmer yet, but
| at least you know the basics. Then elementary school took
| over and I got up to the gold diploma by age 10.
|
| By age 8 or so I already was a far better swimmer than my
| parents, who never had any formal training.
|
| I remember my mom once refusing to take one of my friends
| with us swimming when I was like 8 or 9 because he didn't
| have any swimming diplomas yet (he had only come to Germany
| from Tunisia like a year prior and was in the process of
| catching up with swimming ed). I remember I was mad at the
| time, but in hindsight it was absolutely the right
| decision.
|
| Still, we all knew stories of kids relatively close to us
| drowning; for me it was the little brother of a friend of
| my sisters who drowned when he went to a water park as part
| of a kids birthday. The "usual" had happened: the two
| parents of the birthday kid being too overwhelmed by 10 or
| so loud kids amped up on candy and not trained lifeguards
| anyway, not enough lifeguards, wave pool... the adults
| didn't even notice they had lost track of this one kid
| until they saw the lifeguard pulling him out of the water,
| too late, or so the story went.
|
| [1]
| https://www.dlrg.de/informieren/ausbildung/schwimmabzeichen
| [German]
| brndr wrote:
| Swimming education in Germany is highly standardized. The
| "Bundesverband zur Forderung der Schwimmausbildung"
| (federal association in furtherance of swimming
| education) consists of different lifesaving and sports
| organizations and has recently published new examination
| regulations which highered the standards for swimming
| badges.
|
| All swimmming instructors in those organizations will
| tell you that you should permanently keep an eye on your
| kids and don't let them go to the pool alone until they
| complete the bronze badge which requires you to swim for
| fifteen minutes, dive down to two meters and jump into
| the water. Only after you complete this test you are
| considered a "safe swimmer".
| panadan wrote:
| Despite their popularity, swimming experts advise against using
| inflatable armbands. Although they can help a child to float,
| they can slip off and lead to drowning. Inflatable armbands do
| not prevent drowning, nor are they a life-saving device.
| Mistaking them for one can create a dangerous false sense of
| security. Additionally, inflatable armbands teach children to
| float in a vertical position, which is incorrect because
| swimming is usually done in a prone position. Children who wear
| armbands can become dependent on them, as well.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_armbands
| mcv wrote:
| They're a temporary measure; they make sure that a child that
| goes under, quickly comes up again. But a parent still needs
| to be nearby and paying attention. Never let a child without
| swimming diploma swim without nearby supervision. (This
| should be blindingly obvious.)
|
| Of course once they start swimming lessons, they practice
| without armbands.
| jasode wrote:
| A lot of people don't recommend children wear any
| armbands/floaties/waterwings:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=children+armbands+pool+dange...
|
| In other words, if the small child supposedly _needs_ armbands,
| they shouldn 't be in the pool at all because the inflatables
| can easily slip off the arms.
| mcv wrote:
| They can be in the pool, but the parent needs to be in the
| pool with them. There's no substitute for direct adult
| supervision, or swimming lessons, of course.
| ben7799 wrote:
| If you're in the pool with them they don't need armbands.
|
| Armbands are dangerous and hinder learning.
| mcv wrote:
| I'm not advocating armbands during swimming lessons;
| there's a good reason they don't use them there. But when
| just playing around, they are incredibly useful, and keep
| the kid's head above water.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| As a lifeguard, I'm going to have to disagree with you.
| Arm-floats are blatantly dangerous, and should never be
| used. If they don't fit exactly the way the manufacturer
| planned, they run the risk of pinning a kid's face in the
| water, and even under ideal conditions provide minimal
| safety while providing a false perception of safety.
|
| The only buoancy aids that should ever be worn are Coast
| Guard approved PFDs. Anything else does more harm than
| good.
| chrismeller wrote:
| All in all after watching several of their videos I feel like I
| do a good job of recognizing the drowning person, but I'm amazed
| at how quickly the lifeguards spot it and dive into action.
|
| Even knowing that in this short clip there is absolutely someone
| drowning I still have doubt, but the lifeguard who doesn't have
| that context is already half way to the person by the time I'm
| sure.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| In case of lifeguards it's probably best to react even if you
| have doubts. Human life is at stake, better safe than sorry.
| kelnos wrote:
| In this video I recognized pretty quickly who the drowning kid
| was, well before the lifeguard jumped in, but upon further
| reflection:
|
| 1) I was already primed to find someone drowning; I knew based
| on the video title that there was someone in danger. For a
| lifeguard, it's probably common that they'll go through entire
| shifts without having to jump in.
|
| 2) Even after identifying the right kid, I had doubt: I wasn't
| 100% sure until the lifeguard jumped in and confirmed my
| choice.
| Hamuko wrote:
| How long of a shift do lifeguards even have? Because I wouldn't
| feel confident in being able to observe a bunch of people in a
| pool for hours for what are quite subtle clues.
| qchris wrote:
| I worked as a lifeguard at a lake's swimming area as a
| teenager, and I think it's a little less difficult than it
| sounds. It's not like staring out and hoping your peripherals
| catch something.
|
| Guards typically have discrete areas they cover, and within
| those boundaries you can check for a certain number of people
| and boundary crossings. By doing things like mentally running
| through the list/number of people in your area and noting the
| higher-risk ones, it's a little less mentally taxing than you
| might think. Combined with some overlap between guard
| stations and regular rotations between areas, coverage can be
| pretty good. The real difficulty comes in when you start
| adding numbers of people- the boundaries become less clear,
| the number of high-risk swimmers increase, and the total
| cycle time through everyone you're covering increases such
| that your margin of error between a situation presenting and
| your time to react starts decreasing.
|
| Anecdotally, I always found the behavior changes from a
| normal to tired swimmer to be one of the easier parts. Lack
| of forward motion, intense focus on the activity of swimming
| itself, falling behind from a group. Again, it's more
| difficult the more crowded an area becomes.
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| The lifeguards at my local (city) pool rotate very
| frequently; I'd say every 15 minutes or so. Their shift is
| longer of course, but they aren't sitting observing for more
| than around 15 minutes at a time.
| SilasX wrote:
| Semi-OT: it came up in an earlier discussion that the 15
| minute rule is common, and makes for better attention
| fatigue management than Uber has for SDC test drivers.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19373662
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Not sure this is indicative but at my local pool you can see
| them switching up between active duty and idling nearby in
| the hut about every 15 mins.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I was a lifeguard at the YMCA, and we would never be on duty
| for more than 45 minutes at a time unless we were short
| staffed. You were constantly rotating and given short breaks
| or small tasks to keep sharp.
| hoorayimhelping wrote:
| I was a lifeguard at Disney World (Disney lifeguards work the
| waterparks, all the resort pools, and the pool and the lake
| at the private cast member park, Mickey's Retreat) in the
| late 90s. I believe at the time it was 20 minutes on duty,
| 5-10 minutes rotating to the next station. There would always
| be a couple lifeguards rotating in this scheme and they'd
| able to assist if necessary.
|
| It was very boring, and keeping my mental acuity sharp
| towards the end of shifts was a problem. Take care swimming
| late in the day.
|
| Also, I don't ever swim in public pools anyone. We had to
| shut down the cast member pool one 4th of July because it was
| so dirty and so soiled, we couldn't see to the bottom of the
| deep end (6 feet / ~2m) and it presented a drowning hazard.
| The pool was closed for like 3 days after that while we
| waited for the water turbidity to go down.
| zaroth wrote:
| I think a pool closed for 3 days indicates gross
| mismanagement of chemical levels, not that contamination in
| public pools can't be successfully managed.
|
| In theory a public pool under proper management should be
| cleaner than a private pool which almost certainly isn't
| being professionally managed.
|
| Chlorine in pH balanced water with the right hardness is
| surprisingly effective. Pro tip, if you can smell
| "chlorine" it probably means the pool is dirty and doesn't
| have _enough_ chlorine left in the water. The smell is not
| chlorine in the water, it's the result of the chlorine
| burning off as it oxidizes contaminants.
| dugmartin wrote:
| Yeah, the smell is from the combined chlorine
| (choloramines -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloramines). After having
| my own pool for 10+ years if I smell chrloramines in a
| public pool I won't go it in as it -- likely it is not
| managed well at all.
| stanski wrote:
| To be fair, I think the lifeguards also have a better view than
| the low camera in the corner of the pool.
| 0xBA5ED wrote:
| Of course the lifeguard has extra context by just being in the
| same space with these people beforehand. They're probably
| already watching certain people more closely before the video
| starts while you and I enter the space cold (and through a
| fixed window).
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Almost certainly. Of the saves I made over the years, the
| only one where I wasn't already giving the victim extra
| attention for 5-10 minutes was a seizure.
| Drakar1903 wrote:
| I wonder how people would feel about machine-learning
| enhanced lifeguard system. Machines are sharp all the time.
| michaelt wrote:
| This is such a good idea there are several already on the
| market:
|
| https://youtu.be/Gka9TFwqoVs?t=60
| https://youtu.be/FTtHOZfV_qA?t=47
| https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/drowning-detection-
| sy... https://swimeye.com/
| kqr wrote:
| At least machines are consistently dull.
| JshWright wrote:
| The guards actually have a lot more context. They have been
| watching the people in the pool and have mentally sorted them
| by how much attention they need.
|
| They have also been staring at the same pool for hours and
| their brain is ignoring all the visual noise that is
| distracting you. They also have the benefit of stereo vision
| and sound.
| laumars wrote:
| I agree with your general point but I think some of the
| assumptions you've made aren't quite accurate:
|
| > _They have also been staring at the same pool for hours and
| their brain is ignoring all the visual noise that is
| distracting you._
|
| I'd suspect mental fatigue would counteract any benefits
| you'd get from increased filtering. Which, I assume, is why
| life guards are generally rotated regularly.
|
| > _They also have the benefit of stereo vision and sound._
|
| Sound might not be of much help here because drowning is
| usually something that happens quietly (as the linked site
| also explains).
| JshWright wrote:
| I meant "hours" cumulatively, so their brain is ignoring
| all the background stuff that is competing for our
| attention in these short clips because it's all novel
| stimulation to us.
|
| Drownings in progress are often quiet, but that doesn't
| mean there aren't useful audio cues (splashing that stops,
| a kid who is no longer laughing or shouting, etc)
| laumars wrote:
| Two very fair points :)
| hammock wrote:
| A little bit of training goes a long way, I imagine. There
| are specific risk factors to watch for, not just waiting for
| a kid to start drowning. Most (not all) of the videos I saw
| were of a kid falling out of a tube first.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The sound of the videos is awful and little use, but I would
| guess, in reality, hearing can help too. And humans are
| exceptionally able to focus their attention on a single sound
| source.
|
| In general, I would assume, like with driving, the job of the
| lifguard is a bit automatic, where the mind on its own
| filters out the ones, which might need stronger attention.
| keanzu wrote:
| On at least one example I heard constant frequency
| splashing - it was the drowning person, they were going
| under and coming up rhythmically so the sound was helpful.
| Zenst wrote:
| You're spot on, the visual risk assessment aspect plays a big
| part as does the whole environment filtering aspect.
|
| Also helps that in this instance, most have rubber rings and
| if you see an empty rubber ring, that in itself would trigger
| concerns and focus.
| smabie wrote:
| They're also twirling their whistle which helps a lot, I'm
| sure.
| SilasX wrote:
| When I took the Lifesaving merit badge, they said that
| lifeguards have to carry the whistle because it will get in
| the way if they wear it around their neck when trying to
| make a rescue.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| It's more that a drowning person will grab anything, and
| if that thing is on your neck it will make the rescue
| more problematic than it already is.
|
| (Which is also why the lifeguards here are told to
| approach from the side, less likely to be grabbed on the
| head that way.)
| inetknght wrote:
| Lifeguards in my area have the whistle on a wristband for
| that exact reason plus so they don't accidentally drop it
| while fumbling around with it when not paying attention
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I once told a Life Guard at a public water park that his job is
| hard, that I can't even keep track of my own kids let alone all
| of them. He laughed at me. I still think its a lot of
| responsibility and hard to track everyone.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| This was really really informative. I realized my eyes were
| totally looking for the wrong thing, and also spent too much time
| looking at swimmers who were swimming under water..
| rendall wrote:
| Something in the embed code prevents the "allow full screen" from
| working properly, so the video is tiny and scrunched up into the
| upper left hand corner. When I watched this on YouTube, with full
| screen enabled, I spotted the poor little fellow within about 5
| seconds. This is using the latest chrome (v80.0.3987.132)
|
| This worked, though: <iframe id="player"
| frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media;
| gyroscope; picture-in-picture" title="YouTube video player"
| width="854" height="480"
| src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T5mDQeDkca0"
| allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
| Vinnl wrote:
| The reason for this, I think, is that the idea is that you
| click on the drowning person when you see it. They're probably
| assuming dimensions in able to correlate your click with their
| actual position.
| rendall wrote:
| Oh!!!
|
| Maybe? There is a allowfullscreen="1"
|
| in there, so I think they do want a fullscreen, just... I
| dunno.
| chrismeller wrote:
| In Safari on mobile you have the opposite problem - it's too
| large for the display and there's no way to make it smaller (or
| full screen).
|
| I kind of assumed that was intentional, since the lifeguard
| can't make it full screen or zoom in either. :)
| xenocratus wrote:
| ... for them it is already full screen and way better
| resolution
| Zenst wrote:
| This is brilliant and one of those things that should be in all
| schools etc as it is an education in observation awareness that
| holds well in many walks of life.
|
| I speak as somebody who trained to be a lifeguard in the UK -
| taking the bronze medallion #1 and whilst in intensive and in
| depth (having to know the four chambers of the heart as well as
| full CPR...) course with lots of practical exam parts, awareness
| that this gives you is something you can not learn from books and
| is hard to roleplay.
|
| #1
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Medallion_(United_Kingd...
| Munksgaard wrote:
| How come no one has commented on the fact that most of these
| videos include someone falling off an inflatable ring in the
| "deep end" of the pool while having virtually no swimming skills.
| It seems like a no-brainer to me that it's a bad idea to float
| out on a ring if you can't swim. Is that really common?
| sequoia wrote:
| In Toronto, children are tested for swimming ability at _each
| visit_ to a public pool. Children are given wrist-bands
| corresponding to their age upon arrival. If a child wishes to
| swim in the deep end, he or she may ask a guard to give them a
| swim test (swimming a fixed distance without touching floor or
| wall). Upon passing the test, the child is given _another_ wrist-
| band indicating that they may use the deep end. Parent:child
| ratios are also strictly enforced for younger children.
|
| https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming-spl...
| (see "Important Information")
|
| The presence of children with no swimming ability in the deep end
| of a crowded pool in this video seems like an obvious recipe for
| disaster.
|
| edit: toys and floats _are_ allowed in Toronto public pools, the
| kids have quite a lot of fun with them.
| irrational wrote:
| Same at our local pools in Portland, OR. They have to be able
| to swim 25 yards on their fronts and then 25 yards on their
| backs (without ever touching a wall) before they are allowed in
| the non-kiddie pool.
| dpbriggs wrote:
| Can also confirm this occurs in the Greater Toronto Area. I
| remember feeling very proud when I passed that test.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I was able to consistently identify the drowning child faster
| than the lifeguard fairly easily, but it did require a
| significant amount of concentration (I'm sure it helped that I
| knew that I was supposed to look for someone in trouble). I'm not
| sure if I could pay that much attention for a long period of
| time...
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Many 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| When 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| hrktb wrote:
| There is of course education that can help in a lot of these
| situations. What amazes me is that there is no one around
| these kids to look for them apart from the pool staff.
|
| Most pools here allow for non/bad swimmers to go where they
| want, with what they...under the absolute condition to have a
| good swimmer with them, all the time.
|
| A small kid straying alone in the pool is already an alert
| and the pool staff will get the kid out of the water on the
| spot, with no reentry. Here the kids are big enough that they
| could be swimming by themselves, so for me the blame is on
| the parents for not being there, even if it was for just a
| minute.
| ben7799 wrote:
| I would expect so as well.
|
| Most Wave pools are at resorts/water parks which typically do
| not necessarily even employ fully trained/high skill
| lifeguards.
|
| They often rely on private certification programs that will
| train "shallow water lifeguards" who do not have to have a
| full set of swimming & rescue skills. They do tend to have
| good training for spinal injuries though.
|
| Add in that these resorts are most attractive to non-swimmers
| and they are hopelessly crowded and it is a dangerous mix.
|
| Places like Great Wolf Lodge scare the daylights out of me as
| a former lifeguard/WSI.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Part 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.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Part 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.
|
| The reason for worn (handheld is a different story) flotation
| devices other than lifevests is to sell flotation devices;
| I've never found anyone who teaches swimming to children (or
| adults, but that's not the market for them anyway) that uses
| them, advises using them, or considers them anything other
| than a safety hazard.
|
| If you want to get a kid used to "preswimming", which as I've
| seen it is actually something mostly done with infants and
| toddlers (older nonswimmers usually seem to go straight from
| wall exercises to supervised short swimming with
| knowledgeable teachers) it's best to do it with an adult
| holding them, except for extremely brief transitions.
| dangerbird2 wrote:
| Someone who can't swim on their own should only ever use a
| coastguard-approved lifejacket or other personal floatation
| device. because of the risk of users falling off, Float toys
| like inner tubes, rafts, etc are only safe for swimmers. If
| the pool is busy, it's probably safter just to prohibit non-
| pfd, since they can obscure the view of the pool floor.
| Unapproved floats, especially water wings, run the risk of
| deflating or placing a non-swimmer in a position where his or
| her face is underwater.
|
| Also, when I was a lifeguard, one of the things that was
| sometimes hard to get to parents' heads is that "supervising"
| a non-swimmer does not mean sitting on the side of the pool
| reading a book--it's being in the water no more than an arm's
| length of the nonswimmer. Every second is critical in a
| drowning incident, so having a parent less than a meter away
| will almost always do a better job rescuing a kid than a
| lifeguard in preventing an accident
| falcolas wrote:
| Personal 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| We 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.
| [deleted]
| astura wrote:
| Weird they'd allow that, in the US you have to be able to
| swim a lap to graduate from Navy bootcamp, no matter
| which job you're going into.
| keanzu wrote:
| > cannot really get with an float-assist device, is
| putting their face in the water.
|
| We used kickboards for this exact purpose. So you can
| float face down with arms outstretched holding the board.
| You can transition to freestyle swimming taking one hand
| off the board at a time.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3z1eDDcGE
| _ph_ wrote:
| We used the same in school - mostly for training leg
| movements. Back then, everyone had basic swimming
| capabilities. But these kickboards are a totally
| different story than the blue donuts in the videos.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| So it was practised for teaching swimming here in Poland
| at schools, but these are always in a very shallow pool
| and supervised too.
|
| They lack the failure mode of floating face down in
| water, but instead are unsafe to others who can be hit
| with them. And kids will collide.
|
| The newer foam ones are much softer and safer.
| falcolas wrote:
| PFDs are a safety device, they're great. If you think
| your child might be unsupervised, putting one on is safer
| than not. But as a teaching aide, they're terrible.
|
| You can't swim with a lifejacket. You can only float (and
| in a position that is _different_ from how you would
| naturally float in water).
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yeah, I wasn't super clear - PFDs are great if a new
| swimmer just needs to be in the water. My nephews used
| them at the beach when they were toddlers. But swim
| lessons were mom/dad/instructor holding them in the
| water.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| Arm floaties are a crutch that ought never be used. If your
| kid isn't strong enough to swim on their own, don't give
| yourself the false sense of security that comes with
| floaties.
|
| As an anecdote, they almost killed a friend's daughter a
| few years ago.
|
| She had jumped and fallen forward, and her arm floaties
| moved her buoyancy to her stomach-area, forcing her face
| into the water. Scary stuff.
|
| She was even in a swimming pool she could stand in.
| dangerbird2 wrote:
| A real life jacket approved by the USCG or similar agency
| may be more expensive than water wings, but unlike cheap
| water wings, they are designed to keep the wearer's face
| out of the water. A type I or II jacket can turn some or
| most unconsious wearers rightside up.
|
| https://www.boatus.org/life-jackets/types/
| mrob wrote:
| I learned to swim using a float shaped like a miniature
| surfboard that I held out in front of me. This was both
| supervised and done in water shallow enough that I could
| stand with my head above the surface. If I had not been
| allowed access to this I am certain that I would have
| refused to go in the water at all (I was already very
| reluctant to do so even with the float).
| angstrom wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Please 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.
| parliament32 wrote:
| Thank you for this. Swimming is a basic human activity and
| _everyone_ should know how to swim, at least to a "I won't
| drown at a pool party" level. It's like not knowing how to
| ride a bike.. it's really not that hard to learn, and there
| are no good excuses for an adult to not know how to.
| akavel wrote:
| Then you still need to think, to avoid getting caught in
| tough water with a muscle cramp, or getting caught by
| seaward currents during tides, etc, etc. So, yes, it's good
| to know how to swim, so that you can survive immediately
| after getting into water, but it doesn't automatically make
| you bulletproof safe in water :)
| robohoe wrote:
| How does one learn to swim with small feet? I tried to
| learn how to swim multiple times when I was a youth (grade
| school, middle school, high school). I could never grasp it
| and would always end up flailing my legs or slowly sinking.
| It was quite traumatic :)
| pmarreck wrote:
| Flippers. Flippers magnify your kick strength, you have
| NO IDEA by how much (like literally it must be 10x or
| more). They're inexpensive, and there's no shame in
| having them. They're easy to put on and take off.
|
| I also scuba dive, and flippers are a necessity in that
| circumstance. There is a MASSIVE difference in propulsion
| with flippers. Since you can encounter currents in open
| water scuba diving, they're a lifesaver. (Scuba is super
| cool too, btw. But that's like... super advanced
| swimming. Baby steps.)
|
| Also, arm strength. I actually think most of my
| propulsion when swimming comes from my arms, not my legs
| (I'm not saying this is the most efficient... it's just
| what I do... I never said I was a PERFECT swimmer, lol).
| Hold your fingers together in like a shallow "cup" shape,
| push front to back, then either lift them out of the
| water back to the front OR do what I do when I breast
| stroke and just point your fingers forward and push them
| through the water back in front of you in as
| "waterdynamic" a shape as you can figure out. And then
| reform the cup with your fingers/hands and push yourself
| through the water again.
| eric_h wrote:
| > (Scuba is super cool too, btw. But that's like... super
| advanced swimming. Baby steps.)
|
| I've met more than one scuba diver who were weak swimmers
| but avid divers. To your previous point, flippers turn a
| weak swimmer into > an olympian.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Additional comment:
|
| I did some googling and found these fins designed
| specifically for pool lap swimming:
| https://myswimpro.com/blog/2018/03/01/8-benefits-of-
| swimming...
|
| They're smaller than your traditional "scuba" style fins
| but probably still WAY more effective than your feet
| alone.
|
| They look fun! Wow, now I want to swim again. So fun. lol
|
| Experiment! Google! Have fun! Ignore haters! Let go of
| your negative experiences!
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| You don't really _need_ your feet to swim. In my personal
| experience when swimming most propulsion comes from my
| hands, not my feet. Once you can tread water with just
| your arms you 'll have plenty of time to figure out how
| to swim with your feet without having to worry about
| sinking.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I've found the same (I think most of my propulsion is
| from my hands) but I always assumed I was doing it less
| efficiently (but didn't care)
| saagarjha wrote:
| Are you talking about small feet now? In general, I don't
| really think foot size is all that important for
| swimming. Especially if you're kicking.
| lexapro wrote:
| People that can swim can do so without using their feet
| or legs.
| darkFunction wrote:
| There are paralympic swimmers with no arms or legs who
| can swim a length faster than me, and I'm a competent
| swimmer. I wouldn't worry about your foot size.
| ralphhughes wrote:
| I parsed that on first read as "no (arms or legs)"
| instead of "(no arms) || (no legs)" and was very
| surprised!
| jrwr wrote:
| I did the same thing..
|
| Found the programmer :)
| ben7799 wrote:
| Larger feet are a genetic advantage for swimming but are
| in no way required.
|
| Like most other sports there is a body type that is
| advantaged in swimming.
|
| - Tall overall height (max speed is limited by length at
| water line just like boats)
|
| - Lower than usual ratio for torso length to leg length
|
| - Large feet
|
| - Long arms (positive ape index)
|
| - Large hands
|
| Michael Phelps is a perfect example of this.
| arcosdev wrote:
| In 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.
| namelosw wrote:
| I 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.
| trillic wrote:
| Most 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.
| keanzu wrote:
| Those 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]
| lzol wrote:
| As 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 wrote:
| 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 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.
| vasco wrote:
| 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.
| Swizec wrote:
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| I don't have a pool, thus solving this problem.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I suppose you also avoid getting mugged by never leaving
| your room, thus solving this problem.
| strbean wrote:
| Until someone breaks into your backyard and sets up a
| kiddy pool, and your toddler goes and falls into it!
| keanzu wrote:
| 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.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Better yet: don't have a private pool.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The houses in my new construction neighborhood all have
| pools. We deleted the pool and got almost no cash back,
| so far as I know we were the only family to do so. I'm
| not carrying that responsibility.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| A pool needs at least two lines of protection. One day
| the three year old will drag a garden chair or the box
| someone left out to the fence and climb over it.
| Igelau wrote:
| > Get a fence.
|
| killjoywashere obviously just blocks the pool entrance
| with their enormous trophy case
| keanzu wrote:
| If I thought it would help I'd send my fence off to be
| trained as a Navy physician but it seems to be able to
| handle the task fine without the additional training.
| antasvara wrote:
| That was an extreme example,the point is that kids can
| end up in the water in unexpected ways. Even parents that
| would never intentionally leave children in the water
| alone can end up in a situation where a child is
| unattended in the water. Perhaps a better example is when
| you have 4 kids to keep an eye on at a public pool, and
| you lose track of one while dealing with an injury to
| another, or reapplying sunscreen, or a number of other
| reasons to be distracted. Or what about the situation
| where you send your kids outside to play and they sneak
| back to the pool? No sensible person would let their
| children into the pool alone, but it can absolutely
| happen to even the most careful adult.
| mcv wrote:
| I don't mind leaving my child unattended for a short
| period in a safe area. But not near a pool.
|
| Of course luxury homes with their own pool in the
| backyard put rather a big strain on safety around your
| own home. Put a good fence around it, I guess.
| keanzu wrote:
| > I don't mind leaving my child unattended for a short
| period in a safe area.
|
| ...and safety is relative to this child's capability. My
| parents put me through extensive swimming lessons from a
| young age precisely so they could let me play
| unsupervised in the ocean. I'd been a half mile out to
| sea alone by the time I was 10. Turns out I wasn't as
| unsupervised as I thought; my mum was freaking out but,
| unable to swim, couldn't do anything about it!
|
| But if the child can't swim, no alone pool time for them.
| mcv wrote:
| Exactly. My oldest son, now 10, has been perfectly able
| to swim on his own. We live in a former port area with
| lots of great swimming spots that he visits with his
| friends. But he's got his swimming diplomas (two of them,
| which I consider the minimum for this situation).
|
| Sea, though, can be tricky. Half a mile out to sea,
| currents can be very different. I know that I as a kid
| once floated on a tiny inflatable boat quite a bit out to
| sea, and my dad swam after me to drag me back. I thought
| I could get back on my own, but my dad clearly wasn't
| entirely convinced.
| wahern wrote:
| A true story about an autistic boy and his father who
| spent a whole night drifting after a riptide pulled them
| out to sea: https://www.mensjournal.com/features/lost-in-
| the-waves-19691...
| robocat wrote:
| Some countries and states with pool culture legally
| require a fence around all pools. As far as I can tell,
| New Zealand has a legal requirement for a fence for over
| 30 years. There is a little more info on other countries
| here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_fence
| gowld wrote:
| 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.
| pmarreck wrote:
| > 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!
| [deleted]
| kempbellt wrote:
| 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.
| buckminster wrote:
| Making fireworks that closely resembled pipe bombs
| (almost blew leg off)
| pmarreck wrote:
| oh jesus. yeah, exactly!
|
| I had a pyromaniac phase. Once set a field on fire.
| Things could have gone extremely worse.
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| razakel wrote:
| Peter Thiel mentions in his autobiography that, out of
| the six co-founders of PayPal, four of them made bombs in
| high school.
| keanzu wrote:
| Tory Bruno, CEO of the United Launch Alliance, made
| rockets out of 80yo moldy dynamite. 6m10s
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdPoVi_h0r0
| zipwitch wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| keanzu wrote:
| So none of those activities resulted in your death? Or
| are you posting on HN from beyond the grave?
| pmarreck wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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]
| yCombLinks wrote:
| Drowning far outweighs all of those categories for ages 1
| - 9 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/...
| keanzu wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That's also illegal drugs, IE opiod overdoses
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5605a1.htm
| hutzlibu wrote:
| From your link:
|
| 5-9: Unintentional Drowning 128
|
| Unintentional Fire/Burn 81
|
| I would not call that "far outweighs".
| yCombLinks wrote:
| I can agree with that not "far outweighing", but those
| are mostly home fires : https://pediatrics.aappublication
| s.org/content/105/6/1355#re... not "activities that
| children engage in"
| Defenestresque wrote:
| 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)
| [deleted]
| slavik81 wrote:
| 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.
| atoav wrote:
| I 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.
| frobozz wrote:
| Pretty much anything that people might use in the water
| has that - vests, armbands, beachballs, whatever.
| astura wrote:
| >An exeption were these orange things you strap onto a
| child's arms, and inflate, which they can't really remove
| by themselves.
|
| Those are widely considered NOT safe, a non-swimmer child
| is probably much safer without them than with them, as
| using them lulls the caregiver into a false sense of
| security and they pay much less attention to them. They
| also teach children the wrong posture for
| swimming/floating, which can be difficult to unlearn. In
| the US the common wisdom says that if you use them you
| must be in arms reach of the child at all times - but
| that's what you'd do without them anyway, so what's the
| point?
|
| The idea that you'd leave a non-swimmer child unattended
| with them is, frankly, horrifying.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_armbands
| mcv wrote:
| The problem there, though, is the lack of parental
| supervision, not the armbands themselves. The bands do
| keep the child's head above water. But no matter what,
| parents need to understand that you don't leave a small
| child alone near water.
| MertsA wrote:
| Unfortunately those are profoundly unsafe. They only keep
| the child's head above water while they are slid all the
| way up to the shoulders. If they start to slip down the
| arms, which they are apt to do when swimming, they'll
| tend to slip all the way down to the hands and if the
| child isn't strong enough to pull themselves up out of
| the water it can keep them from being able to swim at all
| as it holds their hands up.
|
| Try to imagine if you were less buoyant like if you had
| ankle weights on and someone tied two empty milk jugs to
| your hands. Your hands are suddenly not useful at all for
| swimming and you can't pull them underwater so now you're
| forced to hold yourself up by pushing your arms out.
|
| Here's how it can look, and this makes it a bit clearer
| why it can be a hazard.
| https://i0.wp.com/renomomsblog.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2015/0... If it slips down to the wrists
| like this it's arguably worse than having nothing at all.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Arm bands should never be used. Unless they're the kind
| that has a chest piece, there is a significant risk of
| them pinning a child's face in the water.
| atoav wrote:
| I maybe should have added that I grew up during the 90s
| so maybe that changed already.
| SamBam wrote:
| I'm not sure what inflatable things exist that go on a
| child's arms and they can't remove themselves. Water
| wings are considered quite unsafe.
|
| Is it possible you are thinking of something like Puddle
| Jumpers (look up an image online), which look like water
| wings but strap behind the child's back, and don't
| actually inflate? Those are, indeed, considered safe.
| vict00ms wrote:
| Those 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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| All of the ones I've encountered in Europe are
| practically impossible to dislodge once they've been
| inflated.
| AbortedLaunch wrote:
| I've seen a three year old jump into a pool with these
| (European) and they came right off, with the child
| plummeting to the bottom.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| All 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.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| To all parents out there, it takes 10 seconds for a toddler to
| drown. Once in the water, if they go under, they tend to get
| disoriented and don't know where is up or down.
|
| When you are with your kids near a swimming pool or the sea, keep
| your eyes glued on them.
|
| My rule is "never break line of sight" (I borrowed the term from
| Assassin's Creed where if you break line of sights from the
| guards chasing you for a few seconds, their aggro switches off).
|
| Line of sight. When near water opt in for a nice podcast/audio
| book and keep your eyes on your kids. A lifeguard is scanning the
| scene but on a 50 kids, you are most likely to spot something
| like this faster/sooner. Also while looking at your kids, you
| automatically scan/cover an area of 10-15sqm.
| missosoup wrote:
| > My rule is "never break line of sight"
|
| That's an actual law with children in Australia, idk about the
| rest of the world. <5 years old within arms reach, <10 years
| old within line of sight.
| mcv wrote:
| In my experience, <4 years, you hold them if the water is
| more than a few inches deep; 5-6 years, you're within 2
| meters and paying attention to them; once they've got their
| first swimming diploma, you need to be near the pool; after
| their second, they can swim on their own, even they're under
| 10.
| ElgamalDSA wrote:
| Friends of friends recently had their 1.5 year old drown in the
| bathtub when her dad left her alone for a minute.
|
| When you are at a pool / lake / sea with a kid that cannot
| swim, keep them in arms reach.
| Fnoord wrote:
| As a young adult, I almost drowned in a bathtub when taking
| magic mushrooms for the first time (a very small dosage of
| ~1/6th of a full dosage). I did put less water in the tub,
| but I still fell asleep, and when I woke up, the water line
| was a few mm from my nose openings. Do not use such drugs
| without a babysitter!
| Fnoord wrote:
| Line of Sight (LoS / LOS) is indeed an aspect in some video
| games [1], including World of Warcraft.
|
| I'm going to swim with my 2 year old daughter for the first
| time this Saturday, so this being linked on HN was a chilling
| reminder. What I'm mostly scared about is that she gets some
| kind of temper tantrum whilst being in the water.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_sight_(video_games)
| mncharity wrote:
| > or the sea
|
| This can be surprisingly non-obvious.
|
| A 5-ish year old walking around and splashing at the beach. In
| shallow below-knee water. With shallow above-knee surf. No
| worries.
|
| Gets knocked down. Repeated wave impacts, unstable sand, water
| hitting face, struggle to breathe air and not water. They're
| unable to stand up again. Keep trying and falling. And then not
| trying.
|
| The parent was a couple meters away, watching, interpreting
| this as play. Bystanders stepped in. Intervention was trivially
| easy. Parent criticized kid for fooling around. So even
| afterwards, it was non-obvious they had been watching their kid
| drown.
|
| Perhaps if you don't have experience where the challenge to
| breathing isn't absence of air, but the presence of too much
| water mixed into it?
| _ph_ wrote:
| If you are trying to keep the line of sight, never ever use a
| smartphone. Based from my own experience, it can easily
| completely distract you for 10-20 seconds or longer. Especially
| if you think you are "just" doing a quick thing. Then there is
| a notification dragging you off or something else.
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| I can only strongly confirm this: last summer, my 2.5 years old
| boy fell in a (private) swimming pool while playing around it.
| Of the 4 adults that were around the pool (less than 3 meters
| away), only one saw him and could get him back safely. We could
| not hear a single noise, no cries, no water splashes...
|
| Although he was wearing those kids armbands, they were useless
| as they were keeping his head underwater (he fell head first).
|
| The whole thing took less than 5 seconds, but it was really
| frightening in retrospect.
|
| Do not break line of sight.
| epx wrote:
| Happened with me once and my kid was 8 or 9 already. 10
| seconds not looking and he was already drowning on the deep
| part of the pool (where he was told not to go).
| [deleted]
| mimimi31 wrote:
| Why are there so many people in the deep end of the pool who
| don't know how to swim properly? Looking at some of the videos,
| it seems like the majority can't do a breaststroke and drowns if
| they can't dog paddle to anything buoyant within a few seconds.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Because public pools can't administer a swimming competency
| test to every one who shows up to swim and people underestimate
| just how bad they are and how quickly they go from fine to
| fucked.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| While there are many machine learning-based drowning detection
| systems out there, I'm having a hard time finding solid
| information comparing their reaction time and accuracy rates to
| lifeguards. Does anyone have any solid research that they've
| found?
|
| I don't want to replace lifeguards or increase their workload by
| spreading them thinner, but want to find out if we complement
| them together whether or not it would _increase_ detection rates
| and lives saved. However, if the current state of the art
| performs abysmally compared to lifeguards, then I have doubt
| whether or not they can be combined for improved outcomes.
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=machine...
| Insanity wrote:
| I could spot a few - but was faster than the lifeguard only once.
| (Well, before they came into view, considering the time it took
| before they came into view I was probably slower).
|
| It'd be a lot harder in real life, when you don't know if there's
| going to be a drowning kid.. being prepared is half the game.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| It's easier in real life because nobody just jumps in the deep
| end and starts drowning. When you're doing nothing but watching
| the pool you notice who is and isn't a strong swimmer and focus
| your attention on the kids who look like they're a higher risk.
| Also when you do it all day you get good. Most people who are
| struggling will know it and make it to the side of the pool
| with no issues so you get a lot of experience identifying what
| "not drowning but might soon" looks like.
| kungtotte wrote:
| Eh, anecdotally, I almost drowned when I was a kid before I
| learned to swim by literally jumping in too deep water. This
| was in the ocean and not a pool, but I walked out on the
| bridge to the first division and jumped in because I knew
| that it was shallow enough there for me to stand on the
| bottom with my head over the water.
|
| Except it was at highwater now, so my head ended up I'd say
| almost a foot under water. I landed on the bottom and managed
| to contain my panic enough to kick off and angle myself so
| I'd go towards shore and not away from it. In the end I was
| fine, but a lifeguard watching me would've been caught
| totally unawares.
| chii wrote:
| you can drown even if youre a strong swimmer. a cramp in your
| feet/abdomen can cause you to drown.
| keanzu wrote:
| I've had severe cramps in my legs/feet many times in deep
| ocean water with no-one around. If you drown from a foot
| cramp you are not a strong swimmer.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Or you're incorrectly trained. You should always be able
| to flip and float on your back if push comes to shove,
| and in that position you can swim just using your arms.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Floating on your back is only possible for a subset of
| the population. There are plenty of people who simply
| sink when on their back, and must kick or more their arms
| constantly to stay afloat. FWIW
| ben7799 wrote:
| This is improper training. (Former WSI here) Especially
| in the ocean. The Salinity in the ocean makes it very
| easy for a well trained swimmer to float. People who sink
| on their back haven't been trained to maintain enough air
| in their lungs and/or use minimal arm/leg effort to
| assist. Also they are probably not leaning their head
| back far enough. (Head position being a massive component
| of the problem for non-swimmers.)
|
| Anyone who is a "swimmer" can float prone or supine with
| minimal effort and work out a foot or stomach cramp. I
| couldn't even count the # of times I've had foot cramps
| while swimming and stopped and floated and massaged the
| cramp out. Floating prone is always the better solution
| for working out a cramp.
|
| I taught adults in private lessons who had this
| "problem". It goes away with training.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| And at Scout Camp each year we always had some. It
| doesn't go away with training. Whether its body fat or
| lung capacity, whatever, they simply sink to the bottom
| no matter how big a breath they take or the 'head
| position' explanation. They can be 'swimmer' and still
| not be physically capable of floating on their back.
|
| The ocean is a different matter I'm sure.
| ben7799 wrote:
| There are always people who fail at swim lessons just
| like anything else, it's more that.
|
| It's a tough problem to solve. I have no more than 10%
| body fat, I have no issues.
|
| But I also taught adults who were similarly low body fat
| and some I succeeded in teaching and some I did not.
|
| Consciously controlling your breathing is a big deal in
| many aspects of swimming & diving. It has a major effect
| on buoyancy. You can't breathe normally/unconsciously
| swimming/floating. It is always controlled. Likewise you
| must keep breathing when diving with compressed air.
| eric_h wrote:
| When I was a kid I would sink with a full breath of air
| (in a pool). I learned the back float and the dead man's
| float in swim lessons but I still needed to move some
| water with my hands to stay on the surface. I enjoyed the
| fact that swimming in the ocean was easier since I didn't
| have to exert myself at all to float.
|
| Nowadays my BMI is such that I float in all bodies of
| water ;)
| matthewowen wrote:
| "incorrectly trained" is what people typically mean when
| they say "not a strong swimmer". anyone who has swum
| alongside 10 year olds on swim teams will understand that
| you can swim quite strongly even without being "strong"
| in the muscular sense.
| keanzu wrote:
| Exactly it isn't physical strength. A strong swimmer is
| someone who removes "drowning" from the list of options
| as long as they remain _conscious_. This is a critical
| point when boating - friends have asked why I always wear
| a lifejacket when on a small boat; as a strong swimmer
| surely I have no need of one. In a boating accident the
| "conscious" part isn't guaranteed. Get hit by the boom
| and go overboard and you are going to need that
| lifejacket.
| mjlee wrote:
| Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning [1] has gone round the
| internet a number of times over the last decade. Well worth
| reading if you spend time around water, and a good read in any
| case.
|
| [1] https://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/
| bmgxyz wrote:
| Thanks for this. I hadn't read it before, and it's quite
| interesting. In particular:
|
| > One way to be sure? Ask them, "Are you alright?" If they can
| answer at all - they probably are.
|
| When I was a kid, I spent a few summers learning to sail. Part
| of our training included responding to falling overboard or
| capsizing our small boats with crews of two. Our instructors
| insisted that whenever this happened we first call out to each
| other, "Are you okay?" and confirm it before attempting to
| right the boat. I never understood why, but now I do.
| MS90 wrote:
| I remember watching the Discovery channel series BUD/S 234
| about SEAL training, it stuck out to me that during their
| swimming test where they're required to swim an entire lap of
| the pool underwater that the first thing they're required to
| do when they come up is yell "I FEEL FINE" as loud as they
| can.
|
| Anyone who didn't do so was instantly hauled out of the pool
| and sent to the medic. Which was good, because some of the
| men were unconscious when they got there, though they still
| passed the test! The requirements were to swim down, touch
| the far wall, swim back, touch the near wall, all while
| remaining underwater. State of consciousness was never
| specified :)
| ben7799 wrote:
| Like others who commented I worked as a life guard and water
| safety instructor when I was younger. (Everything I am saying
| pertains to the US only.)
|
| I rescued quite a few children, it's hard to see in this video
| because the video quality is poor and the camera is at an angle
| that is worse than what the lifeguard in the video is seeing.
| Overall this victim is fairly active and should not have been
| very hard to spot in person for a well trained lifeguard. (And
| they did spot the child.)
|
| This is a weird video because:
|
| There are lifeguard(s) but yet the pool is full of non coast-
| guard approved tubes and floatation devices such. Most places
| with well trained lifeguards would not allow this. They don't
| work, can be more dangerous than no PFD, and they make it harder
| for the lifeguards to see. The worst drowning incident I
| witnessed involved a child in a tube who got flipped upside down
| and couldn't get out of the tube or flip back over. (I was not a
| lifeguard yet when I saw that.)
|
| I think things from my perspective are in a terrible state in
| terms of water safety compared to 20 years ago.
|
| Something must have changed with insurance liability, as most
| places just don't even have lifeguards. Resort pools I see these
| days are designed in a way where sight lines are so poor
| lifeguards/parents cannot even see children in the pools unless
| they are in the pool and stay within 10ft of the child. Very
| different than things used to be. Pool designers have reduced
| depth & eliminated diving boards resulting in a false sense of
| security. Meanwhile the pools are no longer even sufficient to be
| used for teaching up to a point where a person can be considered
| a swimmer. I just got back from vacation and the resort we stayed
| at had a pool which absolutely terrified me. I was 100% in
| lifeguard mode the entire time my child was in the pool, and the
| pool was so bad I couldn't sit in one spot and see him, I had to
| walk the edge of the pool to maintain sight lines. (The pool in
| the video is not like this FWIW)
|
| Fewer young people are supposedly physically fit and able to get
| to advanced swimming levels and pass tough standards like Red
| Cross. There are fewer places that even have Red Cross accredited
| programs these days as a result. Red Cross level instructors
| command high pay, and most places teaching swimming lessons these
| days are money making businesses that pay instructors near
| minimum wage and try to make the franchise owner wealthy. This is
| a relatively large change from non-profit Red Cross programs back
| in the day.
|
| Red Cross has always refused to act as insurance for
| pools/resorts/water parks, and alternate private organizations
| now certify lower quality lifeguards & swim instructors and we
| have new things like "Shallow Water lifeguards" that can be paid
| minimum wage. These alternate private certification orgs train to
| a lower level but do act as insurance so they're very attractive.
|
| I have a 7 year old, he's been through 4 private orgs so far.
| None have had Red Cross accredited programs. All of them have
| been super expensive but they're the only choice available. 3 of
| them did not have deep enough water and their instructors were
| not trained at a level for teaching to a full "Swimmer" level.
| None of the programs seem to focus on water safety and have
| strange practices like trying to teaching 5 year olds the
| butterfly and other high energy/low safety strokes without
| teaching elementary backstroke, breaststroke, sidestroke, etc..
| which are more useful in emergency water situations. Most of the
| instructors I've seen teaching my child show poor enough form
| they'd have not passed a Water Safety course 20 years ago.
|
| The whole thing is a giant mess. I have been considering getting
| re-certified to take over finishing my child's swimming lessons,
| but the course is hard to take these days. Which also explains
| why not enough 16-20 year olds manage to take it. And there are
| almost no pools left to use that are not privately owned and have
| deep enough water.
|
| Also at least by the old standards when someone who was a Red
| Cross WSI calls someone a swimmer we're talking about a pretty
| high level. Someone who can't swim for 30 minutes to safety in
| deep water is not necessarily a swimmer IMO. Maybe standards have
| reduced. But that was a requirement at one point. And this is not
| something that requires elite physical fitness or stamina when
| you are trained to swim well. Some of the strokes are barely more
| physically taxing than walking if you're proficient. Non swimmers
| get a false idea about this because they mostly see competitive
| swimming which uses the taxing/fast strokes.
| smileysteve wrote:
| > teaching 5 year olds the butterfly and other high energy/low
| safety strokes without teaching elementary backstroke,
| breaststroke, sidestroke.
|
| I am amazed at how few of my early millennial peers have never
| heard of the elementary backstroke.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| I just googled "elementary backstroke" and yeah... I'm in my
| forties, pretty proficient swimmer, and nobody ever showed it
| to me.
|
| I watch my kid's lessons and I'm sure I didn't see it being
| shown to them. They got into what I google as "backstroke"
| straight away, without the "elementary" phase.
| bsurmanski wrote:
| I just looked it up and turns out that's my favourite
| stroke! I didn't know it had a name, I just called it the
| "Jellyfish" :)
|
| I don't think I was ever taught it. I think I just
| discovered it playing around in the water one day.
| w-m wrote:
| The first one I got was #26
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAfTA2wf7o) and I find it quite
| hard to detect. Just next to the drowning child, there are a few
| others splashing around, which looks nearly identical. Could a
| machine make the distinction reliably?
|
| Also interesting to note that there are many people really close
| by who do not notice the drowning, but spring into action to help
| once the lifeguard jumped.
| de_Selby wrote:
| It's a bad angle, the lifeguard had a much better view. The
| lifeguard was actually quite slow to react to that one though.
| saagarjha wrote:
| The things that gave it away for me are the head being really
| close to the waterline and desperate-looking, rapid flapping by
| the arms to try to stay above the water. Disclaimer: not a
| lifeguard, this might not actually be valid.
| ericjang wrote:
| I'm a ML researcher: if you have video data/footage for this
| "spot the drowning child", I'd be interested in helping build a
| ML system for detecting this.
| kentosi wrote:
| Can we please update the title with "2015" ?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185
| tlb wrote:
| Added, thanks.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Why? Typically you age an article to contextualize it
| (sometimes REALLY important). In this case it is an interactive
| educational tool, the age hasn't changed its purpose, value, or
| usage.
| Tomte wrote:
| I fully agree with you, but the fight has already been fought
| and lost.
|
| HN regulars strongly prefer a year whenever it's not the
| current year, and the mods have confirmed that we should do
| so.
| clarry wrote:
| Because someone seeing the title might want to know if it's
| something new or the same thing they saw three years ago.
|
| (Sometimes, new things pop up under a title that has been
| seen before)
| mmhsieh wrote:
| using 2x rings is unstable and can also cause drowning; flipping
| upside down while on a ring can also do it.
| ropiwqefjnpoa wrote:
| the kid drowned under my watch, but i'm not a trained life guard
| so that's expected.
| botwriter wrote:
| Surely this should be renamed blacks can't swim...
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