An important reminder about drowning

[DietCokeLover]

Thanks for posting this, I did not know a lot of the facts that were posted on that article.

I had no idea about some of that.

[wendibird22]

Thanks for sharing the link. Very informative.
When I was about 3yo we lived in a house with an above ground pool. My dad was skimming the pool and I was playing in my sandbox. I decided that I needed water for the sand so I climb up the pool later with my sand pail, leaned over to scoop of water and promptly fell head first in the pool. I didn't know how to swim. Thankfully my dad was right there and immediately pulled me up. I don't remember it happening but I do remember being scolded afterwards. To this day water makes me nervous and I'm definitely nervous about my girls in water. Especially now that I have 2 kiddos to watch.

[purpleeyes]

Thank you!! We're headed to the lake next week-I just emailed it to our family!

[infomama]

Thanks....sent it along to many.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I was right there today at the baby pool today when I watched ds2 lose his balance. He has done that plenty of times and this year, unlike last year, he has been able to get back in control. Not today. He went under. He would have drowned had I not been right there and got him out. It was a truly and utterly scary moment. I just really thought he was going to get himself ok. So, I don't think I need to read since I saw it first hand today but I still will.

Beth

[american_mama]

The link is not working for me.

[SunCB]

Link is not working for me either but I looked at a drowning article on Kelleysmom on FB and it talked about the soft above ground pools and LOs going in head first.

For as alternative in my parenting as I am it was hard but I put my kids through ISR, infantswim.com, and am very thankful. DD has gone in twice when I have been dealing with a DS and turned my head just for a couple seconds (her instructor was in the pool with another child also) but I know she was fine even after I heard the splash since she can roll to a float in even full winter gear. When she falls in the baby pool at the public pool she rolls right to a float and the guards are "freaked" out by her skills bc they are not use to it since it is not what a typical now 13 month old does so I have had to explain.

[Smillow]

The link is not working for me.

Me either!

[goldenpig]

DD just finished ISR (Infant Swim Resource) survival lessons and I'm so glad we signed her up for it. It is totally different than the baby & me type swim classes we had done in the past. It was 10 minutes a day every day (M-F) for 6 weeks, which I initially thought was strange but it really works. I really feel like my DD learned an important skill...how to float on her back and breathe if she falls in the water. Since she was older they taught her how to do a swim-float-swim so she can get back to the side of the pool (even in full winter clothes), but they also do lessons for babies 6 months-1 year where the baby can float on their back. Nothing replaces careful adult supervision of course, but it's a little peace of mind that if the unthinkable were to happen and she were to fall in the water, that she would have a fighting chance to survive.

See http://www.infantswim.com/ for more info and videos.

Also, the AAP recently changed their stance on swimming classes for children under 4:
http://www.aap.org/pressroom/aappr-may2410mailing.htm
"In the new policy, the AAP reinforces its existing recommendation that most children age 4 and older should learn to swim, but the AAP is now more open toward classes for younger children. In the past, the AAP advised against swimming lessons for children ages 1 to 3 because there was little evidence that lessons prevented drowning or resulted in better swim skills, and there was a concern parents would become less vigilant about supervising a child who had learned some swimming skills.

But new evidence shows that children ages 1 to 4 may be less likely to drown if they have had formal swimming instruction. The studies are small, and they don’t define what type of lessons work best, so the AAP is not recommending mandatory swim lessons for all children ages 1 to 4 at this time. Instead, the new guidance recommends that parents should decide whether to enroll an individual child in swim lessons based on the child’s frequency of exposure to water, emotional development, physical abilities, and certain health concerns related to pool water infections and pool chemicals.

“Not every child will be ready to learn to swim at the same age,” Dr. Weiss said. “Swimming lessons can be an important part of the overall protection, which should include pool barriers and constant, capable supervision.”

The AAP does not recommend formal water safety programs for children younger than 1 year of age. The water-survival skills programs for infants may make compelling videos for the Internet, but no scientific study has yet demonstrated these classes are effective, the policy states."

I'll post the text of the story in the OP since the link only worked intermittently for me (thanks for posting swissair81!):
"Drowning? Not likely.

The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the owners who were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”

How did this captain know, from fifty feet away, what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. Th e respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

(Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006)

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experience aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in there own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

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.

So if a crew member falls overboard and every looks O.K. – don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them: “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare – you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

This Article Was Written By Mario Vittone
Mario Vittone has nineteen years of combined military service in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. His writing on maritime safety has appeared in Yachting, SaltWater Sportsman,On-Scene, Lifelines, and Reader's Digest magazine. He has lectured extensively on topics ranging from leadership to sea survival and immersion hypothermia. He is a marine safety specialist with the U.S. Coast Guard."

[bubbaray]

Thank you OP for posting this link. I forwarded it to many. Including DH who had his own scary story to share -- apparently DD#2 quietly slid under the water and nearly drowned, mere inches from DH at our local pool. Um, nice. He didn't tell me before today.

FWIW, I had the girls at their pediatric dermatologist a week ago and told the derm that DD#2 gets eczema (she has chronic severe eczema) from swimming. The derm said, repeatedly (at least 3x over the visit) that it was VERY important to continue the swimming lessons for safety reasons, regardless of her skin issues (we are on board with that, we both think lessons are very important).