[HN Gopher] Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning (2013) ___________________________________________________________________ Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning (2013) Author : matthewsinclair Score : 159 points Date : 2021-07-28 14:56 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (slate.com) (TXT) w3m dump (slate.com) | [deleted] | lsllc wrote: | From 2013, but still highly relevant and something all adults | should be aware of. | abfan1127 wrote: | this type of training should accompany CPR training, something | all adults should know also. | SavantIdiot wrote: | The last time I took CPR certification the instructor said it | shouldn't be taught anymore because it is essentially useless | in day-to-day life. The speed at which the brain dies without | immediate hospital attention is just too rapid for CPR to be | effective outside of a hospital. | | EDIT: I'm not lying, I was literally told this by the person | performing the certifications. She said only 1 in 20 people | survive without severe brain damage. Which is better than | death to some people I guess. | lsllc wrote: | According to the American Heart Association [0], CPR can | double or triple the chances of survival: | | _" Each year nationwide, more than 350,000 people suffer a | cardiac arrest outside of a hospital; only about 10 percent | survive. | | When the heart stops beating, a lack of oxygenated blood | can cause death within minutes. If CPR is performed | immediately, it can keep blood flowing to the brain and | other vital organs, doubling or tripling a person's chance | of survival."_ | | [0] https://www.heart.org/en/news/2018/08/22/cpr-training- | at-sch... | choeger wrote: | Counter example: Danish captain at the Euro 2020 opening | game. | pdovy wrote: | Not to mention that AED's are more prevalent in public | spaces these days. If you can provide CPR _and_ use the | AED the chances of survival increase dramatically. | [deleted] | willyt wrote: | That sounds like nonsense and it's certainly not what I've | been taught when I've taken advanced first aid courses. | It's true that the statistics are not on your side in that | the CPR has only a 1 in 5 chance of being successful and | that is if you start immediately after the persons heart | stops, but that's no reason not to try it. | | Recently, an acquaintance of mine was saved by two of his | employees who performed CPR on him for 30 mins until the | ambulance arrived. He was very lucky to have collapsed in | front of them and that they had both been in the army and | had good first aid medical. He was hospitalised for 3 weeks | and he has memory problems now, but he's out of bed and | there for his kids. | [deleted] | lamontcg wrote: | There's a video out there of three Indian guys who filmed | themselves drowning when they went swimming in a pool of water. | Most people seem to think it looks fake/staged. I won't bother | linking to it, but I'm sure google can turn it up if you go | looking. | gamegoblin wrote: | So, at the risk of doing the SV "how can we ML this" thing, this | seems like a pretty good opportunity to apply computer vision. | I'm sure OpenAI or Deepmind or whoever could build a lot of good | will by training such a model and freely distributing it. | | I'm sure it will be tricky due to lack of training data, though. | | You could maybe even do this without an end-to-end ML system, and | just use ML to do the head+arms detection, and then do a rules- | based approach to determine the drowning status. This is probably | much more tractable and doesn't have the lack of training data. | bigmattystyles wrote: | Yes we can - and what people miss, you don't have to be ML only | or Human only - it can be Human lifeguard augmented by ML, | especially at places like beaches where the horizon to scan is | much larger. I suppose the danger is of the human becoming | complacent. | | As far as training data, if we know what it looks like, we can | create virtual scenes that simulate different conditions and | scenarios and train on that. Obviously, it won't be perfect but | if it gets deployed, we can start getting more real life data | and augment the training on that. | | Not for lifeguards, but I've always imagined a future vision | system that would track me in my lap swim workout. At the end, | it would tell me my stats, length swam, times, stroke done | (with count) and maybe even down the line coaching my form. | MattGaiser wrote: | There is apparently a company doing this already: | | https://swimeye.com/ | [deleted] | gentleman11 wrote: | Strongly agreed in theory, but... | | That goodwill ends when the company is found to be uploading | all footage to the cloud to evaluate everyone's physical | fitness and body shape for future insurance company use, and to | build a picture of your social web for Facebook one day, and | heck, whatever else people will pay to know, including to serve | warrants against other people incorrectly identified by other | ml systems as commuting some crime | | I'll become 100x more pro-machine vision once severe laws get | made to restrict how it's used. | andrewem wrote: | The author of this has some videos related to swimming (0). See | for example the one called "1-10-1 Final" where he jumps into | cold water that is about 40 degrees F (4 degrees C) and stays in | for a number of minutes, showing what to do. | | [0] https://vimeo.com/mariovittone | seriousquestion wrote: | What an odd title. Drowning does look like drowning. How could it | be any other way, given that it's involuntary? | opium_tea wrote: | I've seen this as an LPT or similar posted on Reddit. I think it | helped save a life in the New Year pre-pandemic. | | I'd stopped at a picnic location near a rocky Atlantic (European) | coastline with my partner. It was a picturesque location but the | sea was inhospitable - huge swell and waves that just looked | violent. We'd sat down at a bench with a view of the sea and set | out our lunch. At some point after that I noticed two people in | the sea, maybe 30-50m out. They were bobbing about in the swell. | Initially I was confused. It didn't look right but my mind tried | to make explanations - maybe the locals just swim out there in | crazy conditions? After some time it became clear that they were | in trouble, I guess that's when the "drowning doesn't look like | drowning" advice came to me. Luckily the beach (tiny strip of | sand between cliffs) had a well-labelled sign with an emergency | number that I called and managed to ask for an English speaker | and described the situation. | | Whilst waiting for the response one of the people in the water | started trying to tow the other towards shore but made no | progress. They kept disappearing behind large waves and at some | point I could only pick out one of them, then I saw a pair of | shoes or sandals floating then I saw the other person face down | in the water, occasionally visible behind the swell. There was | some dithering where a local official came to the beach to check | out the report but eventually we heard helicopters and one person | was rescued and the body of the other recovered. | | It turned out there was a group of three tourists, two sons | (teenage/early 20s) and their dad. A local had taken them to a | fishing spot - a flat rock that spanned out towards the sea close | to water level. A large wave had washed the dad and one of his | sons out to sea. The dad died. I witnessed the other son - who | hadn't been washed out to sea - being interviewed by police, as | utterly distraught as i've ever seen a person, understandably. | | Looking back on it I should have realised the severity of the | situation sooner but perhaps without this advice I would have | left it too late and neither would have made it. | MarkMarine wrote: | One thing I learned in naval aviator swim qual was how easy it is | to float for a very long time, given the right technique. (Called | a dead man's float. Link: https://www.sportsrec.com/prone- | float-8623477.html ) | | We naturally try to swim with our heavy head out of the water, | but with full lungs most people will easily float for almost an | unlimited amount of time, only popping your head up for a breath. | Somehow, the more nervous you are, the more you struggle to keep | your head out of the water. Learning that I could float like this | for hours if needed keeps me calm in the water, I recommend you | all try it, and keep it in mind to fall back on if you ever start | to panic in the water. | Rapzid wrote: | I grew up on lakes in Florida. I wasn't taught to "swim" as | much as I was taught to survive in water. | | Swim classes should be reframed as water survival classes IMHO. | Confiks wrote: | If you want to try yourself if you can identify drowning, there's | this great educational 'game': | | http://spotthedrowningchild.com | | It's pretty hard to spot it before your hear the lifeguard | blowing their whistle. Turns out [1] that the game was actually | inspired by a HN thread on the same article in 2015 [2]. | | [1] https://github.com/FrankSalad/spot-the-drowning-child | | [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237 | MattGaiser wrote: | It seems easy to spot once you see the first one, but it really | just looks like a child bobbing up and down until then. | ineedasername wrote: | > _http://spotthedrowningchild.com_ | | Wow, even _knowing_ there would be someone in danger, I didn 't | spot until, at best, the lifeguard jumped in and usually a | little after that. And they didn't know something bad was about | to happen, and had to be scanning the entire pool constantly. I | should have had a few seconds of advantage on that at least. | | I think I would be terrified to have a job like that... 99.99% | of the time everything is fine, which would make it hard to | maintain constant vigilance when you might go multiple days | without an incident. while needing to be prepared for that | extremely small window of crisis. | Natsu wrote: | After you watch enough videos, you learn to look for kids | doing unsafe things (e.g. climbing on flotation devices) to | spot things ahead of time. Sure, you learn what drowning | looks like, but if you watch, the lifeguards often react | _instantly_ which means they predicted that person would get | themselves in trouble ahead of time and reacted as soon as | the person went under. | | I got a lot better at it after a little bit of practice and | most of the improvement was figuring out who was doing | dangerous things that you needed to keep an eye on. | bruiseralmighty wrote: | I used to be a lifeguard. I am glad I never had to deal with a | pool like that with so many people and inner tubes in it. Makes | line of sight so much more difficult. | dgfitz wrote: | When I was a lifeguard we forbade floats. They're lifeguard- | resistant deathtraps. | BuildTheRobots wrote: | Because of people getting trapped underneath? | tj-teej wrote: | Because you can't see underneath, a pool is 3D and if we | can only see the surface we're missing the most dangerous | part. | jdavis703 wrote: | This is why jobs like lifeguard or airport security | frequently rotate workers during a shift. | dgan wrote: | Watching these videos make me extremely emotional :( I had no | idea that's how drowning looks, | | I am also scared of water, so I guess (?) I am safe on that.. | spywaregorilla wrote: | I was a lifeguard and I never felt very confident in it tbh. | But I do win this "game" every time. So... idk, what that says. | codetrotter wrote: | Sounds like a good mentality for a lifeguard I think, | probably keeps you alert. And combined with the fact that you | are good at spotting drowning people means that you really | are a good fit for the job. | ineedasername wrote: | I think that's the only way I could do this job, if I was | pretty much constantly terrified I might miss something, | never comfortable, not at all. That has to be a hard state of | mind to maintain when you might go a fairly long time in | between crisis. | secondcoming wrote: | Those inflatable tubes can't help a lifeguard's view of the | pool. | tstrimple wrote: | No, but they help my gaming mindset. The majority of the | issues arose when someone fell off of a tube in water too | deep for them, so that's what I optimized for. I'd probably | be a terrible life guard but I do just fine at the "game" | version. | Natsu wrote: | I'm pretty sure this is what most of the guards were | watching for, too. Quite often they react instantly once | someone goes under, so you know they had an eye on the kid | climbing on top of their tube before that. | okareaman wrote: | After watching the videos around the time this article came out, | I spotted a man drowning in the ocean. I was on a cliff looking | down at some tourists not familiar with the ocean. I couldn't get | down to him or make myself heard to shout a warning. Fortunately, | he pulled out of it and got to shore. It was the most helpless I | ever felt. | srean wrote: | I continue to be amazed by what lifeguards can do. | | Even if drowning looked like drowning there is just so much going | on in a crowded pool I cannot imagine how people can pick on | anything. To me it seems like an audio-visual version of drinking | from a firehose. | | If I was in their place the best strategy that I could conceive | of adopting would be to a for loop checking each one out, and | perhaps dwelling a little longer on those who I think maybe | particularly susceptible. But this would be a terrible strategy, | too easy to miss someone, too much latency in revisit time. | | So a hat tip to all lifeguards on HN, deeply appreciate your | work. | wkearney99 wrote: | We had our 9mo child take 'Infant Swim Rescue' courses, basically | anti-drowning lessons. The concern being the waters near us are | cloudy and it'd be impossible to see someone if they went under. | Classes went well. | | At a neighbors party a 2.5yo fell into the pool. I saw it | happening and the little girl just SANK LIKE A STONE. With a | panicked look on her face. Little feet hit the bottom, let out a | blurp of air and did nothing. Her Dad was already in the air | diving into the water before I could get up. The child was fine, | thankfully. Her folks immediately asked about the classes I'd | mentioned before. | | I can still see the complete bewilderment on that child's face. | She just had NO IDEA what to do and would have drowned had it not | been for quick actions. | | My point here is lessons are absolutely worth considering | starting MUCH earlier than you might guess. This isn't learning | to 'swim', it's learning how 'not to drown'. | ChrisArchitect wrote: | (2010)! (it's a republish) | | Some previous discussions of this old piece resubmitted often by | usual suspects: | | _11 years ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835 | | _6 years ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237 | | _5 years ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755 | | _3 years ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593 | ineedasername wrote: | _resubmitted often by usual suspects_ | | Do you mean you think they were posting/reposting things purely | for upvotes? If so, I still don't care: As something both | interesting & important, popping up on the front page seems | like a good thing every few years. I don't care is @tomte or | whoever is doing it just to get meaningless internet points. | Different people rotate in & out of HN, so anything really | interetsing/important is just fine by me if it keeps popping | up. | [deleted] | oalders wrote: | On a swim safety note, if you're going to be swimming in open | water, I highly recommend getting yourself a swim buoy for | visibility. You can also use it to stash your phone, keys, etc if | you've got a dry bag. https://outdoorswimmer.com/product- | reviews/tow-floats-and-dr... | alex_anglin wrote: | Thank you for sharing. I wasn't aware these existed and am | already looking at getting one. As others in the discussion | have noted, it doesn't a lot of depth or distance for bad | things to happen. | oalders wrote: | They're handy to have. I think most of them are technically | not life saving devices, but you can use them for a bit of | extra flotation if you need them. They're handy to rest your | head on if you're taking a break and hopefully they make you | more visible to other traffic on the water. If you're | swimming with buddies it helps them to see where you are at | in the water, especially if you're farther apart or if the | water isn't flat. | | I'll sometimes swim with a group at sunrise. We swim out | about 750m from shore. Having the buoys helps us see where | the other swimmers are at and ensure that everyone is safe. | Also, if the swimmers ahead of you have good lines and | they're sighting on the same thing as you are, you can be a | bit lazy and just follow their buoys instead of having to | pick out a landmark on the horizon. | | You can even put an LED inside of some of them to get a bit | of extra visibility depending on conditions. Lots of options! | s5300 wrote: | >We swim out about 750m from shore. | | Yeesh, this for some reason invokes a likely unreasonable | bit of fear in me. I completely understand sucking it up | and getting over things if money is involved (like working | on a crab boat in the Bering Sea), but that far out for | leisure activity spooks me. | | I was always a pretty good swimmer and had my lifeguard | license for a bit as a teen through boyscouts activities. | I've always been aware of risks of open water and riptides | and how to deal with them... for as long as I can remember. | | However, a few years back now at Blacks Beach in La Jolla | (reputation of the best yet most dangerous surf in | California AFAIK), in a normal beachbspot I'd spent a lot | of time around away from the surf, I mind bogglingly got | hit by an outlier of a wave out of nowhere in otherwise | calm waters, close to shore. I had prescription glasses on | with no safety, stupid, but I'd had no plans of being in | anything higher than my low waist, and only for a short | while. | | Glasses got knocked off (I'm really near sighted without + | severe static vision), wave brought me down under to the | sand, and I was pulled out by the most insane force. I'm a | mechanical engineer, so well aware of the sheer insanity of | the forces involved with bodies of water and currents, but | it was just an unreal and out of nowhere rip. | | Got myself quickly situated and calm but internally scared | as all fuck, was pulled out probably 1.5 miles by the time | I swam out of the rip. Swimming back in was hell because I | was mostly physically exerted from hiking already. | | Nobody noticed what had happened and there wasn't a damn | thing anybody could've really done about it either. | | Not too sure why I felt the need to write this out... but | stay safe. I can only want to get my swimming done in a | pool at this point, unless I'm around highly competent | lifeguards with boats and rescue equipment (I'm sure | there's a chance you are perhaps around boats when doing | this?). Just so much that can go wrong so fast. | krumpet wrote: | Something else that is important to mention is that young kids | can easily slip into a pool or jacuzzi and not make a sound. We | might think we would hear a "splash!", but that isn't necessarily | true. | | I watched my daughter step of the ledge in a jacuzzi once and it | was completely silent. One second she was walking and the next | she was under water. | | Keep your eyes on young children near water at all times. If they | are really young and can't yet swim, either be with them or have | them wear an approved flotation device. Going under can happen in | a split second when your back is turned. | zengineer wrote: | This article actually "saved my life". I read it back then in | 2013 and in 2014 I almost drowned. | | Just before I felt that something was very wrong I remembered | that this post said that if you drown it is already too late to | scream for help. So I shout to my friend, who was also with me in | the water, that I am about to drown. He then tried to help me but | then he struggled too because of the current and the strong waves | which came out of nowhere. It took us a lot of effort to get back | to a point where we were able to stand. Until today I try to | avoid to go deeper than I can actually stand. | March_f6 wrote: | As someone who recently almost drowned a couple weeks ago this | article is spookily accurate. I was surprised how indifferent | everyone on the shore was when a wave finally coughed me up onto | the sand. My only assumption, post stress headache, was that it | just didn't look like I was drowning. | libria wrote: | What was the cause of duress? Undertow? Fatigue? Inexperienced | swimmer? | March_f6 wrote: | I suspect it was a mix of a couple things. Here's how it | went: 1. I exhausted myself to a fair degree when I first | swam out in order to get past the point at which the waves | were breaking. Once I was in a calm area I began to rest and | catch my breath. 2. I began to feel what I can only describe | as a slight panic attack when I noticed that the current was | behaving slightly like a rip (a current pushing away from the | shore). 3. The cold temp of the water mixed with the newfound | anxiety and my exhaustion began to make me feel shorter and | shorter of breath. 4. At this point I was in full panic mode | and started using all of my energy to get back to the shore | or at least to the point at which the waves were breaking to | carry me in. | | So I think in general you could categorize it as an | inexperienced swimmer because I couldn't spot the rip from | the shore but I don't think its always so obvious since even | a small one could carry you away. | meepmorp wrote: | Yeah, never fight the rip tide, you won't win. Move | laterally - rip currents are usually narrow, and you can | swim out of them sideways. The lack of control, though, is | freaky and unsettling. | [deleted] | drucik wrote: | Article seems to be spot on - it's good to remind people about it | once in a while. | | When I was a kid I jumped into a semi-empty pool, where depth was | more or less equal to my total height. Bad judgment on my part. I | couldn't swim so all I could do was bouncing of the bottom, | gasping for air with each bounce. That was the only thing I could | think of doing. Lifeguard was there but he didn't notice drowning | kid, nor did people around me in the pool. Fortunately my father | was more aware, and jumped in, fully clothed, to drag me out. I | don't remember if it lasted 30 seconds or 2 minutes but I do | remember the scared face of the 'lifeguard' when we were walking | past him. | | edit:grammar, at least what I've noticed | devoutsalsa wrote: | When I was in the army, one of my roommates drowned right in | front of a bunch of people he was swimming with. He was in about | 3 meters of water, got a leg cramp, went under, and never came | back up. I found him face down on the bottom of the lake with his | face in the mud. He was later declared dead. Took a while to get | over that. | Rendello wrote: | My mother was a lifeguard and was swimming in a medium-sized | empty pool surrounded by other lifeguards (her colleagues). Her | leg cramped badly and she went under, she said the pain of | trying to move was unbearable. She crumpled up at the bottom of | the pool and nearly drowned before her one of her fellow | lifeguards noticed something was wrong and saved her. | | That story's always stuck in my head. | EvanAnderson wrote: | This topic has come up on HN several times before and it never | ceases to unsettle me. I'd never had a personal experience with | it before. It's even more chilling after having had an | experience with it. | | My 8 y/o daughter recently attended a "pool party" w/ sports | teammates. One of the mothers, fully clothed and there only | acting as a chaperon, jumped in to pull out one of the girls | who was in distress. | | The distressed girl's mother had commented, just a few moments | before, on how the girl was "fine" and "just playing" as she | flailed about in the water. My wife said the girl didn't look | to be in distress, per se, but was kind of "jumping around". | | I found out later that the mother who rescued the girl she'd | been a lifeguard. She recognized the girl was in distress. | There were 8 to 10 other adults present and no one else, in or | out of the pool, was thinking too much of it. It's absolutely | chilling. | Natsu wrote: | The problem is that drowning looks _exactly_ like someone | just "jumping" in place in the pool. If you don't know what | to look for, you might not realize what's going on, but for | anyone who knows, it should rightfully set off alarm bells. | | I hope someone sends the parent this game so they can learn | without having a dead kid :( | leaveyou wrote: | I'm a very amateur swimmer and I try to understand why people | drown from cramp in one leg? Because me being a novice, I | learned how to swim without using the legs too much (mainly | because it takes skill to coordinate everything well) and one | of the very first things was me floating by turning my head | hard backwards while standing vertically in the water and | sinking in water up to the nose, basically sticking as little | of my face above water as possible and IIRC I was floating fine | with very little help from hands and no use of the feet at all. | That seemed easy, especially in dense cold water.. | Rendello wrote: | My lifeguard mother almost drowned from a leg cramp (see my | sibling comment), she explained that the pain of movement | becomes so unbearable that your body basically goes into the | fetal position and sinks to the bottom. | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: | I occasionally wake up from extreme leg cramps. It literally | feels like someone is taking a knife on the serrated edge and | pulling it down from the top of your calf muscle for a solid | 20 seconds. All you can do is writhe in agony and scrounge up | into a ball because naturally that is your response. After | it's over you're in a ton of fatigue, your heart is racing, | and just want to rest. Now do that in a pool. | treeman79 wrote: | Used to get that a lot. Leg once cramped super hard which | smashed my knee into a metal railing. Double agony that | night. Magnesium supplements really helped | a lot. Later on, stretching lots and lots of stretching. | Now a massage gun. Cramps are a thing of the past. | MisterTea wrote: | I get those in bed from time to time and my course of | action is to keep the leg strait during the onset, get out | of bed and stand up stretching the leg muscle. The pain can | be very intense but once I stand up and apply pressure by | standing on the leg, it almost immediately stops the cramp | and the pain subsides within a few seconds. | | I used to let the leg contract and curl up powering through | the cramp pain until it subsided but a few times it lasted | over a minute which is agonizing. | leaveyou wrote: | Ok, I understand.. it seems I had milder versions of | cramps. The one I remember the most was when I basically | had to grab the toes of my foot and pull hard counter to | the cramping muscle and basically it ceased after several | seconds. It was very painful but I didn't know they can be | paralyzing. | kibwen wrote: | This kind of extreme cramp is known as a "charley horse", | if you want more information. | em-bee wrote: | it doesn't take much movement to get a cramp. the few times | that i had a cramp, i was doing things like getting out of | bed or standing up from a chair. horribly painful and the | only thing you can do is to stop moving and try to relax. | | if you do that in the water, you sink. by the time you | realize that this was a bad idea it's to late. i can imagine | that the pain would distract me to much to be able to focus | and use my arms to keep me afloat. never mind that i'd | probably also not think about taking a deep breath to get | enough air before sinking. | [deleted] | lazyant wrote: | Also: stay away from low head dams | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYgODmmiAM | soco wrote: | It's incredible how much text there's about it and zarroh video | material. So difficult to hire an actor and show us dummies how | drowning _does_ look like? There 's enough CPR videos, thanks a | lot for them, yet about drowning just blah and confusing | animations. </angryrant> | cycomanic wrote: | Look at the post further up were a poster pointed to | http://spotthedrowningchild.com/ which uses videos. | soco wrote: | I'm missing the explanatory, clear, close-up videos. The | gamea with a pixel-wide kid somewhere in the background would | then work to check on that learning. | canniballectern wrote: | Here's another comment with some excellent demonstration video: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27984716 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-28 19:01 UTC)