Arizona Childproofers wants EVERYONE to be safe in the water. Drowning can happen in a pool at a home OR a friends house, in a
public pool, at the beach or at the lake.
Drowning can happen anywhere there is water. The more aware we are of what to do, what to
watch for, how to react….the more lives t will be saved.
Below is an excerpt for a blog written by Mario Vittone
The new captain jumped from
the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he
kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple 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 10
feet away, their 9-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 50 feet away—what the father could not recognize from just 10?
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 know 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 No. 2 cause of accidental death in children, ages 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 some of those drownings, the adult will actually watch the
child do it, having no idea it is happening.
NEXT POST: Details of - “The Instinctive Drowning Response”.
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This is such a great information! And is so true! Drowning is quiet and sudden!
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