Two life-saving articles. I’m very tempted to just reprint both in their entirety, but no. Just, as you love life and your children, read both of these:
Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
- Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. Th e respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
- Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
- Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
- Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
- From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.
Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are n the water:
* Head low in the water, mouth at water level
* Head tilted back with mouth open
* Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
* Eyes closed
* Hair over forehead or eyes
* Not using legs – Vertical
* Hyperventilating or gasping
* Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
* Trying to roll over on the back
* Ladder climb, rarely out of the water.
- It is impossible to die from hypothermia in cold water unless you are wearing flotation, because without flotation – you won’t live long enough to become hypothermic.
- You Can’t Breath
- You Can’t Swim
- You Last Longer than You Think
- Rescue Professionals Think You Live Longer
- Out of the Water is Not Out of Trouble
I lost count of the number of survivors I annoyed in the back of the helicopter because I wouldn’t let them move. I had a rule – if they came from a cold water environment – they laid down and stayed down until the doctors in the E.R. said they could stand. It didn’t matter to me how good they felt or how warm they thought they were. Because the final killer of cold water immersion is post-rescue collapse.I excerpted more from that last not only because it’s the thing that surprised me the most, but because it contains a general survival rule:
Do What The Rescue People Tell You To Do
The drowning article also contains a story about a very annoyed couple trying to wave off a rescuer who refused to understand that they were fine and didn’t need any help — except he was coming for their daughter whom they didn’t realize was drowning.