Drowning doesn’t look like drowning. That’s one phrase we kept hearing over and over during our “rescue diver” training years ago, and it’s a key fundamental to learn.
What drowning looks like
Humans have something called the “Instinctive Drowning Response (IDR)”, something that people do as they start to drown. It most often looks absolutely NOTHING like the hollywood version of somebody drowning.
Rather than re-invent the wheel, let me share the description from the IDR from Wikipedia: “To an untrained observer, it may not be obvious that a drowning person is in distress — they may appear to be swimming safely, while actually they are within 20–60 seconds of sinking under the surface. They extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface in order to lift their mouths out of the water. When their mouth is above the water, they quickly exhale and inhale instead of calling for help. Because of their arm movements and their focus on lifting their mouth out of the water, they cannot wave, kick their feet, nor swim to a rescuer, nor grasp a rope or other rescue equipment. They may be misunderstood as ‘playing in the water’ by those unfamiliar with drowning, and other swimmers just meters away may not realize that an emergency is occurring.”
Here’s a brief video which shows what drowning actually looks like:
Keep flotation devices around water
It is FAR beyond the scope of an article on a prepper site to teach proper rescue techniques, but I do want to share one of the things I learned in a Rescue Diver class… if at all possible, you want to give people something to grab onto so that you can tow them in… and not swim out and grab them yourself…
We keep a flotation device attached to a tree next to our pond at “The Place” even though we don’t swim in the pond (it’s deep, the thermocline is about 2 feet down and it goes from warm to BRRRR really quick). That device is a toss bag with a rope.
I can’t give you “5 Easy Tips To Keep People From Drowning”, but I am encouraging you to stop and think about yourself, your family and (if you have one) your group… and to also encourage you to keep an eye open for anybody who looks like they are drowning next time you are at the pool, the lake, the beach or wherever.
Since we are on this subject, I would like to encourage all scuba divers to progress through their training to at least the Rescue Diver level. You’ll not only cover first aid and rescue techniques, but search techniques to locate a missing diver that are just as applicable on land as in the water.
Absolutely, Paranoid Prepper!
In addition to all you say (which I wholeheartedly agree with), Rescue Diver is probably the single most enjoyable class I ever took… in our quarries in the midwest, where visibility is quite limited, the search part of it was really challenging.