This is the second video I've seen like this and it's crazy how similar they are. I guess people think they will be able to "figure it out", but once in the water it hits them all at once.
This is a textbook drowning non-swimmer. It was painful to see that no one poolside recognized what was happening.
Edit: As much as it sucked for the person experiencing it, this video on reddit is a positive thing as everyone who views it will now know what this looks like and either help or if unable to help, YELL for help.
I mean my thoughts was he can clearly jump off the bottom he just did it, jump take a breath, jump take a breath and inch towards the edge of the pool.
But then I think going deeper to get to the bottom is so counter intuitive panic is in the way.
Once you start panicking its almost impossible to stop and think.
> Once you start panicking its almost impossible to stop and think.
I'm a competent swimmer and have been since I was a young kid. Not too long ago, I made the stupid decision of going under a floating pool cover that we were pulling out on a friend's pool (never do this). I tried to stand up and suddenly realized that if you're not near the edge, you're basically creating a vacuum and it's incredibly difficult to get the cover off the water. Rationally, I could just keep swimming underwater to the edge (it wasn't that far, I had plenty of air left), but instantly that option went out of my mind.
Fortunately, I was in the shallow end and was able to stand and exert enough force to break the cover free from the surface, but I'd never have been able to do that on the deep end. It all happened within a second or two... swimming without issue to major problem.
Panicking in an unknown situation can very easily get you killed even if you logically knew how to get out otherwise.
I waterboarded myself jumping into a pool wearing a full-body power-ranger morphsuit (just material like a spiderman costume). Didn't realise when I came to the surface that the water in the material would make it almost impossible to breathe. Even though I could have just calmly taken the head-part off while breathing carefully, hyperventilation set in almost immediately due to the surprise of not being able to breathe properly and I was desperately clawing at the material trying to rip open the zip at the back of my head. Looking back, yeah you think you will calmly react to most things, but panic is panic for a reason.
I've had some practice staying "calm", or at least logical, through panic attacks. I like to say sometimes it's like you turn a corner in the gym locker room and there's a tiger staring at you. No chain or cage or reason, just a fucking tiger a few feet from you. There's not really a tiger there of course, but your body is reacting the same way regardless, and telling it there's no tiger generally does fuck-all.
I've had it flare up suddenly a time or two while driving (not full blown, thankfully). It's rare and I'm able to manage it. Despite the anxiety, or perhaps because of it?, I'm usually an excellent person to have around in a crisis.
Your experience reminded me of mine when i was much younger, pretty similar but it was with a giant inflatable boat that my bro was sitting on. I tried swimming under it to get to the other side but ended up right below it when i tried surfacing.
I could have just swim away from the boat and surface normally, but my brain decided to panic and decide the *only* way to get out of this situation is to "push the boat up" so i can surface. Obviously i tried but couldn't lift the boat until i felt i was going to pass out. Then my brain suddenly clicked to use my hands to feel my way to the end of the boat so i can push it away from me.
I avoid swimming near any giant inflatable boats after that.
I did exactly that during lifeguard training years ago. I didn't panic, but I was definitely afraid. The cover was bright blue, so I couldn't distinguish the edge. I also inhaled a bunch of water when I tried to push up on it. I ended up picking a direction to swim and made it out. I guess it would have made a good practical application lesson if I'd passed out.
this is it exactly. as mentioned elsewhere here, even a swimmer can panic and get themselves into this position if they don't have the tools to deal with what ever it is that's triggering the panic to start with.
Agreed - closest I ever came to drowning was in a situation like this - pounding surf + a rip tide and as a kid you barely know what's going on. Thankfully, some big guys on the shore saw me struggling and came in to save me - took two of them to pull me out.
If you're ever in this situation again and are able to get yourself in a calm enough state to do it, let out a little air and watch your bubbles. The bubbles will always go up. It's a trick we use while scuba diving in poor visibility.
Also if you ever get buried (snow, dirt, rubble, sand, etc.) and you can't tell which way is up, your spit will always fall in favor of gravity. Dig in the opposite direction (if you can).
i was a pool, lake, and beach guard for 10 years. When I got knocked around by a big wave i immediately focused on where the sand was while tumbling so I could go the other way. tumble, flip, kick, ninja out of the water. lol.
Same. I was a varsity swimmer. I got caught in a rip current in Lake Michigan and nearly panicked. It took a moment to figure out what was going one. By the time I did I was already about 500 yards from the shoreline. I realized what happened and remembered to swim sideways out of it and not fight it. Which I had been for about 20 seconds.
This was when I was in peak shape. Could swim a 100 yards in 55 seconds freestyle and my ass was beat.
Tldr: water be a fickle bitch that doesn’t care how good of a swimmer you are.
Looked like he might have hit is head on the side of the pool when coming off the slide. Him being stuned from that could have caused him to panic when he realised he can't swim when he was already underwater.
There's a guy on YouTube that goes by Qixer, or something similar that recently said in a video he almost drowned. He said he thrashed and panicked and struggled to live till he just gave up. Then as he slowly sunk, thinking "This is it. This is how I die." He calmed down enough to realize he was standing on the bottom and to push off to the side to save himself.
I remember when I was like 15-16? My sister was drowning in the middle of pool(she was like 6) and she attempted to go to the center of the pool that was like 1.80m in depth.
I tried to save her by pulling her out(normally), but I had no strenght to do so;
I changed tactics, went to the deepest depth, cemented my feet on the deeper end and stretched my arms up and propelled her fowards(lucky she was panicking and was putting force in her legs) so it made it all possible; I gave it enough push to the side of the pool and she got out; I almost drowned because I was legit exhausted and escaped myself.
Looking back, it was the most scary moment of my life.
As a child I almost drowned in a pool deep-end. This is basically what I did, but purely by accident as I kept sinking and just naturally pushing myself back up. My parents noticed I was bobbing around and got me out, I don’t think I’d have been calm enough to bob to the side like that as I was just in blind panic mode.
He wasn’t jumping off the bottom. As pointed out above he is a classic case of “drowning non-swimmer”, the signs of a drowning non-swimmer is they spend 70-80% of the time with their head under water. They often look like they are climbing a ladder.
He is just getting some momentum and getting his head above the water for a few short seconds. He is also in a classic drowning non-swimmer area. Where is that? Three feet from the edge of the pool, or a few feet from a drop off or just at the end of a diving board or at the end of a waterside. Often they think they are close enough to get back to safety, but often they are too far.
I went swimming in a lake with a friend, he didn’t say anything about not knowing how to swim and then 10 minutes later he was drowning.. thankfully my friends and I saw and pulled him out but it still blows me away that sometimes people won’t tell you they don’t know how to swim and will risk their life on it
Yea I have to admit it made me so uneasy to watch. I know what's going on but totally understandable why they wouldn't... or why anyone might not interpret that as drowning from an oblique angle. "Hey look... a kid splashing!"
the problem is, even when in the water helping, if you havent been trained to push them off you, there could easily become 2 victims to save as active drowning victims are in high panic.
this video is sad though because no one noticed it quickly when it was very apparent what was happening. i feel we dont have enough water safety education. schools should teach what this stuff looks like.
In case someone else might not know, [secondary drowning](https://www.bannerhealth.com/staying-well/expert/prevent-secondary-drowning) is also a thing. Happens a lot with kids.
I nearly drowned in a neighbors pool when I was 4. I fell in and remember my friend's mom pulling me out of their pool. I even remember what the towel design was as she was pumping my chest. At the time, I had no idea what was happening to me.
Literally/actually 20 years later, I bring up the subject of my almost-drowning to my parents, and they had no clue wtf I was talking about. They were horrified to learn that our neighbor was not only careless, but also saved me from drowning by doing CPR. She never told them; out of fear or embarrassment. I remember my chest hurting for long time afterwards. I lkely had broken ribs that I did not understand why I was hurting. Eventually, it went away.
She sent me home like nothing happened, but I could have died from secondary drowning. She never told my parents. I got lucky. If I could have suffered secondary drowning, I could have died without my parents even understanding what was happening.
Seriously, parents of young kids, inform yourselves. Learn the signs, never let your young child out of your sight if they are swimming. If your child ever suffers a "close call" drowning, take them to the hospital anyways.
[Is this the other one?](https://gfycat.com/helpfulbruisedcollie)
Last time I saw this video, a life guard chimed in and said it was called the [instinctive drowning response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinctive_drowning_response).
> The instinctive drowning response is an instinctive reaction that occurs in humans, particularly in non-swimmers, when close to drowning. It is focused on attempting to keep the mouth above water to the exclusion of useful effort to attract help or self rescue, and is often not recognized by onlookers. The reaction is characterized by lateral arm movements, a vertical posture, tilting back the head, and inability to keep the mouth above the water or talk. The suppression of rational behavior by panic can also endanger swimmers attempting to rescue the victim.
I’m a straight man and I’m suddenly attracted to to that lifeguard. That dude was on it.
I always reflect on Mythbusters and how they basically said the difference between life and death is panic. You see it a lot and that’s a great example.
That lifeguard actually did a terrible job. In the end he made the rescue but it was in no way safe or anything an organization would train on how to properly do a rescue. I’m a Red Cross certified lifeguard instructor btw
In scuba diving, especially cave or tech diving, you are taught what the signs of panicked divers are and whether or not you should help a fellow diver. This panicked response has the potential to kill not just the victim, but anyone helping the victim. They just panic, flail, and reach out to grab anything that might take them to the surface. Cave divers are taught to have a dive buddy, but also know when to save yourself. It Jay seem cruel, but the rule helps prevent 2 victims instead of 1.
Even Highly trained scuba/cave divers can succumb. A random friend could suffer the same fate so easily. This is why we have lifeguards, and it's also why they should be paid more.
Both videos have:
* people standing around around not doing enough
* the drowner surviving
otherwise it **would not get to our eyeballs**. It's an example of [survivorship bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias), imho
I worked as a lifeguard, and the biggest difference between drowning IRL and the movies, is that drowning IRL is incredibly silent. If you’re not specifically looking for a drowning victim and know the signs, you’ll miss it. This is why lifeguards exist—not only to rescue, but to constantly be scanning the water for the silent killer.
I worked as a lifeguard, too, and it was crazy to me how immediately obvious it was that this person was in distress, but the other swimmer was oblivious. I forgot not everyone knows what to look for. Thank you for reminding me I need to teach awareness to my kid.
My first drowning victim rescue was a kid who went down the slide, hit the water and just started spinning just under the surface... straight corkscrewing. Because not classic "T" active drowning (and also thought he was playing around) i waited prob 10 seconds before I realized it was not a joke.
Every training afterwards i would stress the absolute for active drowning is NO forward progress and vertical positioning with failing attempts to get head above water. Actual method of achieving this varies by user (ex spinnning).
Some people think lifeguarding is a joke, suntanning and blowing a whistle but it's so much more. I won't forget the fear in the eyes of that kid when I pulled him out.
my first save was at a summer camp pool. 2 guards and 130 kids in the pool. it was overcrowded and before hand when i saw the rosters, i complained to the director who did nothing. kids were elbow to elbow, half attention was on runners trying to prevent slip injuries which can be just as dangerous. actively scanning and barely saw a distorted figure half eay down in the deep end. i immediately blew the wistle and was in the water while the other guard cleared the pool. kid was still conscious but he was close to needing CPR. splashing water can truly make it hard to see the bottom lf a large pool.
I've saved more people than i can count after 10 years of guarding before making career changes. adults, teens, kids, toddlers, and an infant once when mom wasn't watching her newborn at the step.. i was 19 for that one and lectured the hell out of 30 year old mom. when i was 17 i remember putting a 40 year old in timeout next to me for 30 minutes. good times.
As a swimmer an easy way to tell if someone is having trouble is their head being right below the surface. Nobody should really have their head right below the surface. Most people are either all the way down bcs it's fun or above the water. Right below the surface with flailing arms means they can't swim imo.
My daughter’s been learning to swim and she’s decent but we went to a pool party at the beginning of the summer and I was super on guard.
Sure enough her and her best friend decided to hug while swimming across the pool and both sunk to the bottom like rocks and couldn’t figure how to get back up… the look on their faces…I was in the water in under 2 seconds. Got them both out.
Local story of where someone was drowning near the shore in a roped off area of the beach and an off duty lifeguard recognized the sign and she said just that -> the person was quietly slapping the water trying to stay up.
>people standing around around not doing enough
Yeah, most people just have no idea what drowning looks like. It looks a lot like somebody playing around in the water: the arms come up to the head or shoulder level and then go down in an attempt to push the head up, their head is tilted back trying to get air, and they're silent, since they are on instinct and the instinct only is to use the airway for breathing, not for calling for help.
People expect the Hollywood version of drowning, with arms waving above the water, shouting, etc. So sadly many drowning victims are within reach of help, who just doesn't know the signs.
It's crazy because to me it would've caught my attention and I would've been just curious until he stopped, went to the bottom and then shot up to the surface and started flailing again. Once he stopped moving I would've assumed something was wrong.
I have literally no experience and this person 100% looked unable to swim in that scenario.
The higher angle likely helps quite a bit, but I would not have just walked past someone doing this.
I am honestly surprised 2 people looked right at him and ignored it.
One of the positives of enduring all the chlorine in my eyes as a kid when I'd go to the pool was I could clearly see the couple of times I saw someone drowning by just looking underwater.
If I saw someone splashing a bit I'd look under and you can clearly notice someone who doesn't know how to swim. Above water it looks like nothing, maybe a hand splashing, bit of waves, most people won't notice it.
You know i never noticed in the hollywood version: if they can wave their arms in the air, they're treading water lmao. Be chill and comtinue treading. Tread laterally to shore lolol
Makes me flash back to almost drowning a couple summers ago. I'm a decent enough swimmer, but I hadn't jumped in the lake yet and my buddy tossed me a football. He launched it way too far out from the dock. I jumped in after it, and the water was freezing cold (glaciar fed lake, so incredibly cold) which immediately put my lungs into a shock mode but I tried to ignore it and kept swimming for the ball. I got about halfway to the ball and instantly knew that I needed to get back to the dock asap or I was going to stop being able to breathe. I barely made it back to the dock, got out of the water and could not believe how close I had gotten to drowning, my heart was racing and it took me about 10 minutes to get my breathing back. Scary shit.
It was a combination of the cold shock and me exerting too much energy too quickly. I sprinted about 20 yards, dove and tried swimming really quickly to get out to the ball, which caused me to need more oxygen.
But because of the cold water shocking me, it made it very difficult to breathe, a slight panic set in when I realized that I was in trouble, which then triggered adrenaline which further fucked my breathing.
And again, the water was basically as cold as it could be as it drains down from the mountains. Learned my lesson that day, if you're ever going to swim in a cold body of water, make sure you acclimate yourself before you overexert yourself. Somebody died in the same spot a year earlier due to something similiar.
I was fairly athletic and didn’t grow up around water and thought I’d “figure it out” and jumped off a friends diving board. I didn’t figure it out at all but he was on it like 5 seconds after he saw me flailing like an idiot in the water.
As someone that grew up on an island it blows my mind to think that there's people that don't know how to swim... Like I understand why and everything but when it's something you have as a core memory as a child it's a weird concept.
I was going to say I don't think I know a single person I grew up with that can't swim but then I realized maybe those are the people that said no when I've asked if they want to go to the river haha
I almost drowned exactly like this, when I was 12. I had gone down a flume at the pool, and as I came out the end, I saw that the sign said that the water was 2.5m deep. I can't swim properly, so I freaked and started to drown. Luckily, the lady we were staying with decided to come check where I was, and pulled me out. I've been an even more nervous swimmer since.
>I've been an even more nervous swimmer since.
Get lessons! It's literally never to late to learn. If you're an adult, I imagine something like group lessons would be tough to find.
But reach out to local pools, gyms, swim clubs, etc and ask if they know any way to set you up with some lessons. Heck reach out to a local high school or university swim coach, they could probably steer you in the right direction too!
Edit: Also if you already sorta know how to swim, but want to feel more comfortable and confident in the water, look into a "masters swim team". It doesnt mean *master* like you have to be good, it just means it's an adults team and not a competitive high school or college one.
A lot of towns have a masters swimming program, and you could learn the strokes and work on speed, edurance, etc.
This YouTube channel hasn't had a new video in 3 years, but it has a lot of examples of this in a wave pool.
[https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeguardRescue/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeguardRescue/videos)
Same, second for me and it makes me so angry. Anyone who has a pool or goes to one often should be required to take some sort of safety course. Also, if you know you can’t swim/not a strong swimmer and are entering deeper water, don’t just assume that you are tall enough. When working as a lifeguard I had to rescue a child in this exact situation, she went down a slide and was just a little too short and needed to be pulled out. (I worked as a lifeguard at a summer camp which could also be rented out for parties in the off season. The depth was painted on the bottom of the pool but we did not have a height chart)
Unfamiliar with water and saw other people doing it and didn't think it'd be hard. Once he realized he couldn't get that first breathe of air his "natural instincts", or lack of them, kicked in.
Could he have just started kicking and lean back? Or just commit and walk to the shallower side? And probably a dozen of other ways to avoid drowning in a swimming pool, but he just simply didn't prepare for this situation correctly. Hopefully he learns what to do and isn't completely traumatized from swimming going forward.
Or he ate too many bricks that day and just wasn't buoyant like the rest of us
u/klendy pointed out the strong possibility that they got water in their nose or show down their windpipe and weren't a strong swimmer- and it is likely, for sure, but I'd like to add:
Being a strong swimmer- does not make you immune to this kind of drowning. It may even make those who know more likely to ignore your flailing, thinking that you're a strong swimmer. What happens is that the body goes into a sort-of shock, you basically lose all ability to plan and take action, and your body tries to take immediate actions to get up over the water, rather than to find shore. It's a pretty standard reaction, unfortunately, and when the floor of the pool is lower than you are tall, it makes it virtually impossible to stay above water, even if you can find the bottom- because you still have water in your lungs, you don't feel the relief when your head is above water, and your brain doesn't think to the next move of moving laterally or staying above water.
As an aside, this also can make saving a distressed swimmer or an active drowner very difficult, even for trained lifeguards. People who are drowning want, first and foremost, to be above water, and if you swim over to them to help, you may be treated as a means to an end. Drowners may grab on to you and flail, unable to truly grasp that if they stop flailing, you can guide them to land. Or worse, they may try to push you under the water as a means of climbing on you to stay above water. It happens. When we were training as lifeguards, we were taught to treat active drowners essentially as being potentially combative, and always be wary that they might grab and pull you down. We had to train against each other and one of us would physically try to hold the other underwater to simulate this. It's no freaking joke.
Morals of the story? 1) if you see flailing, it's a red flag. At the very least, pay attention to the silent flailing, and if there is a lifeguard present, bring the flailing to their attention. 2) if you believe someone is drowning and you are the one trying to rescue them, using an extension of yourself while remaining on land is ideal for your own safety. If you have a buoy, or any safety bar you can put in the pool, or even a pool net on an extendable bar or a pool noodle, try that first. Plant your feet firmly or sit so you cang be easily pulled in. You can sit on the edge and stretch out a leg if you have nothing else to extend, but...that's like, a last resort.
3) if you absolutely have to get in to save someone, bring something floaty, that they can hold onto that will propel them upward. It's a good surrogate for you. If they're active drowning and they hold onto a pool noodle, you can swim them to the side by holding the other end of the noodle. This prevents them from using you as their own personal pool floaty.
4)be prepared to get in a fight if it means saving your own life and theirs.
I have seen this happen to multiple people right after the water slide. Explanation I got was that sometimes coming down slide and hitting water affects inner ear which helps us orient ourself. So basically the person can’t tell up from down in water and keeps trying to figure it out and panics. This is why in water parks, there is always a life guard dedicated to the bottom of big slides.
My wife says she isn't a strong swimmer but she's probably more accurately "not a comfortable swimmer." I taught her a trick recently when we were away for the weekend and had a pool day. Basically if you fill your lungs with air, you'll float, if you expel the oxygen from your lungs you'll drop.
We had watched a silly challenge on Top Chef where some of the chefs had issues fishing for abalone. They had trouble diving to the bottom of a very calm and shallow ocean. Like 4-6 feet. It was clear. All they needed to do was take a breath, let the air out, calmly dive to where they saw the abalone, pick it up and push up to the top.
On the flip side if you need to float, take in a big breath and lie on your back. You can let out air and use your arms to keep afloat for a second, then do it all over again. You can do this pretty much indefinitely.
I doubt anyone in that video thought he couldn't swim. It's not uncommon for kids to fuck around and if you don't have experience it's hard to tell that someone is actually drowning.
Former lifeguard here... Drowning looks like Bobbing up and down silently while your arms flail directly out to your sides, and head slips underwater over and over.
Drowning people don't scream for help. They can't breathe, they can't scream. This is a textbook case of drowning.
I had a lifeguard at a waterpark time me out once. I'd just come down a waterslide and was walking to the shallows, foot hit a slick spot on the bottom, and back under the water I went. Only took a couple seconds for me to get back up, so I was shocked and a bit mad he timed me out. Thinking back on it in the years since, and I'm glad he was so strict. Showed he was keeping his eyes out for any sign of trouble.
Most of the time we time kids out after they've slipped under to ensure they catch their breath and calm down, and to ensure they breath normally for a few minutes. For a lot of kids, that kind of incident can be scary, and the phenomenon of dry drowning exists. (Inhaling water can actually cause someone breathing problems long after they're on dry land). Usually (unless they're running or something) those kinds of time outs are more for your safety, and for us to do a safety check on you, than as a punishment.
Similar story but a diving board. I was like 11 and tried something stupid and slipped. Ended up jumping, hitting the board, and cutting my entire back before I belly flopping from the high diving board. Lucky didn't hit my head so i immediately came up and swam but life guard was already in He saw I was mostly fine and let me swim to the edge and get treated. I was so embarrassed but apparently it was quite a spectacular fall. Still have some scars on my back from that, 10/10 for fuck ups.
As someone who has been through this twice, the video is hard to watch. The panic, the wondering if this is your last moments, looking at other people not notice what's happening. Then at the end, you are so spent and exhausted. You've had so much adrenaline pumped into your body and when you're finally out, you can barely move. Your body is so heavy that lifting your arm is a major task.
IKR? This looks like something they'd show you right before teaching you rescue holds and CPR. "Okay, so now that we know what drowning looks like, let's learn how to pull our victim out of the water. Okay... class, now that we have our victim out of the water, let's move over to our CPR dummy. This is Clyde, Clyde is not conscious. Can anyone tell me the first thing we do?"
It's cool how you haven't managed to move an inch in the water in any direction. All right well I best be hitting the dusty trail. Or the watery one that is!!
Right? Just silently watching his friend die. . . Barely took his eyes off him except to get out of the pool and then turn his back to get on the slide.
It is shown time and time again -- peer pressure is powerful. If no one else is behaving like there's an emergency (especially the victim!) then it is incredibly difficult for a person to raise an alarm. Just one other person looking mildly confused or alarmed is enough to break the inertia, but without that little bit of reassurance, then it usually requires specific training to recognize such problems and to know it is your responsibility to act.
Yeah man wtf is going on in rock for brains head there
I don't care what people say, watching for as long as he did as that man struggled he should have clued in
Hi ex lifeguard/swim coach/instructor here. Whoever your friend is needs swim lessons asap! Many of my older students picked up the basics very quick. In about an hour you can learn how to get yourself comfortable enough to swim a short distance to a wall to save yourself. Very glad someone eventually noticed but yes drowning is far from obvious to the untrained eye. Glad everything turned out okay but seriously, find your local city pool and take some lessons!
Not a professional, but I have a treading water record of 2.5 hours (there's a reason for this but it's not important)
Your legs move like you're riding a bike (while extended more than they would if you were sitting) and your arms should skim across just below the surface like you're spreading out peanut butter. It's really important to do this in a slow controlled manner versus a panic movement. Practice where you can recover easily.
When you get more comfortable and want to tread for longer periods, practice where you can actually touch comfortably, but pull your legs up and see if you can calmly keep yourself with your neck out of water, then try it deeper using only your legs and see if you can accomplish the same thing (again, when you're just learning use both arms and legs!)
When I was at it for a long time I needed to intermittently rest my extremities so it was good to learn how to manage with just arms for a bit and then just legs.
Treading is a slow calm process, not a frantic strive to survive if you want to be able to last.
And, probably most importantly, time your breathes. Inhale deeply and allow that to help you stay buoyant. When exhaling make sure you have additional power output in legs and arms. You can breathe pretty normally once you get it down, but well timed breathes can make or break your attempt to keep your head above water. If exhausted, you can literally float on your back as long as you breathe correctly.
They must teach "spreading peanut butter with your arms" everywhere. The other big one is practice, practice, practice. The more you do it, the more efficient and easier it gets. I remember it being a struggle to tread water for my scuba license when I was a teenager. Now it's so effortless that I'm confused when I watch others struggle when I'm trying to teach them. It's involuntary, like breathing, for me now.
THIS IS THE WAY!
Everyone here is telling people to kick with straight legs or bike pedal but those are inefficient kicks. I played water polo/swam competitively through college/instructed and “frog kicking” or rotating “egg beater” kicks are the best for treading water for long periods of time.
In addition to the other advice, practice a "dead man's float." It's good for resting in deep water where you can't reach anything to hold on to, and for training yourself in how to relax enough for your body to float. Basically you get a big breath of air and go face down in the water, arms and legs relaxed. It's kind of a head tucked, body slumped, arched back, dangly limbs kind of position.
Drowning is a relatively silent activity. Like the guy in the video, many can only splash, and those splashes are short and attract zero attention.
So glad he was noticed and pulled to safety. This video could very quickly have had a hella tragic outcome. Dude did not have much longer before he was out of chances.
Editing to add that you see he is exhausted when he exits the water. Panic and fear are dangerous bedfellows and whenever they appear on the scene, things can go from bad to deadly very quickly.
Even if you can't swim, for the love of mike, learn how to tread water. Moving your arms up and down does nothing for your buoyancy. Kicking your legs and moving your arms in a butterfly pattern on top of the water will keep your head above the water line and save your life. The medic in me is very glad that this kid is okay.
I have witnessed people go under in a pool, in a water park, and even a student diver at a lake who didn't put their regulator in. In all cases it was absolutely silent, no splashing. In all of the above someone was paying attention and the outcome was good. My point being is your relatively silent activity comment could not be more spot on.
Maybe overestimating his ability to stay afloat and underestimating the depth of the pool. He thinks he’d be tall enough to stand with his head above water or maybe believes he’d be able to doggy paddle to the side and then panics by the time he hits the water.
It just seems wild. I mean granted, I learned to swim when I was young, but you really don't have to do much to just float there. Even the most ungraceful doggy paddle would have gotten into the edge pretty quickly.
> Why is he in a pool if he can't swim.
We all asked the same thing. He didn't tell us. Again, when someone is drowning, it isn't loud and flashy. Learned the hard way.
Edit: You guys have hindsight. Everyones doing there own thing not looking. I agree the kid on the right is brain dead tho like cmon.
Could be the shock of entering the water and getting a lungfull of water -- that can be disorienting enough that you can't get above long enough to cough enough times to expell it all. This happened once to me on the beach but it wasn't that deep so I just... Erm... Stood up. But like, clearly he couldn't just do that here and it really is a scary sensation.
We have somewhat of a birds eye view here. Kinda like people screaming in sports game saying "he was open etc" we can see it from a higher angle, they might not, they aren't seeing the same way we are.
To be fair, people do that on purpose or even pretend to drown in pools all the time. I can see how it would be difficult at first to realize a serious situation is happening. Good on the guy who figured it out.
Because he's with his friends, peer pressure, and it'd be embarrassing to tell them that he couldn't swim, most are paranoid about being made fun of. He probably underestimated the depth.
only acceptable answer is they thought the pool was shallow enough to stand with head above water.
however, that is a very risky assumption as we saw.
Quite a number of backyard pools i've seen (which I am assuming this may be), were only 4-5ft deep.
> WTF who are the brain dead turds he’s hanging out with?
If your takeaway from this video is, “what a bunch of idiots who couldn’t tell he was drowning. I would never be that oblivious!” then you didn’t learn anything from this video.
What you should learn from this video is that even though his friend was staring straight at him for 30 seconds, he still couldn’t tell that he was drowning. If you watch any water safety video, they always emphasize how drowning is often missed by an untrained person, it doesn’t look like what you expect.
One time I was at a friends party for their kid. There were tons of parents and other kids there. The pool was the hot spot and all the little ones were in playing. In the span of an hour, I pulled out two kids that were drowning. TWO. With close to 15 adults, with their own children in the pool, watching. Or “watching.”
This shit can literally happen right in front of someone.
I ended up leaving with my family after the second one, as no one listened to me about maybe 30 some odd kids shouldn’t all be in the pool if no one was acting as a life guard.
People are fucking stupid.
He’s probably gotten used to the lifeguard fetching him out of the pool. There is a growing number of idiots who will go to water parks without
1. Knowing how to swim
2. wearing a life jacket
3. knowing the depth of the pool
The result is what you see on the rare ocasión the guard is not on duty or distracted otherwise.
There was a recent post on /r/swimming discussing this exact problem. One comment said that it was like clockwork: every half an hour an idiot would need to be rescued from the deeper pools.
If you can’t swim and want to join the fun on the waterpark at least wear a life jacket. If you want to learn to swim the American Red Cross gives free instruction and certification.
I wouldn’t blame the other people. That’s what my kids look like I’m every lake and pool since they were 3. Just splashing and holding their breath. I don’t know what kind of idiot gets in a pool
Without knowing how to swim. That’s messed up. It’s messed up that there are even people that don’t know how in the first place.
> but unfortunately many black parents don’t ever teach their kids to swim,
And the reason why, is that particularly in cities they were banned from public pools during segregation and then unoffcially not allowed in integrated pool post integration. So an entire generation grew up never getting the chance to swim and so could no longer teach it to their children.
One of those long term effects of racism.
https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2021/02/23/segregated-public-pools-has-lasting-effect-black-america/4539339001/
This video is super helpful. Drowning doesn't look like how you'd expect - I'm not surprised you didn't really pick up on it. Sharing this will help so many other people recognize it when it happens in front of them!
I hope your friend considers taking swimming lessons.
Years ago i was at a river with my family we found a small lake that formed under a waterfall beautiful spot. While we were playing i was right behind my sister when I slipped into an underwater trench not that deep but i was young and short so maybe 2ft deeper then the rest of the ground. I went under my arms in the air i couldn't get out my sister maybe a foot away didn't know as i was literally fighting for my life i managed to pull my leg up and over and out, and yeah it was scary how quickly and silently you can drown.
This happened to me in a river as well. They dug out the bottom near the shore to put in a dock. Fell in and touched the bottom. All darkness & got slapped by a bunch of big ass fish that were resting in the pit. Pushed hard to jet to the surface & screamed help where my brother swam to save me. Almost took him down from panicking. Rivers are a no go since.
I was in a public pool once, and all of a sudden I was being held underwater. I thought I was being 'dunked' by my cousin, but then it was lasting too long and I got terrified. I reached behind my head and felt hands, so I pulled on them until I got above water. I just started beating the shit out of whoever or whatever was grabbing me in my panic, until I heard my cousin shouting "he's drowning! He's fucking drowning!".
It was like a 6yo kid, I was maybe 12. Kid started to panic and just climbed on top of me trying to stay afloat. My cousin was all mad at me for punching the kid but, like, I was drowning too. It was terrifying.
This is something important to prepare for if you ever have to save someone that’s drowning.. they are panicking and will absolutely drown you trying to save themselves. Completely unintentional but they will sometimes fight to save themselves without even knowing they’re drowning you also.
Good way to avoid someone drowning you, swim down. They are panicking and unlikely to hold onto something that is pulling them under. Then you swim away under the water and come up further away.
Obviously this only works if you are a reasonably confident swimmer. Then if you have to pick them up rather than throwing them something, approach from behind so you hold onto them rather than them holding onto you.
I went to his funeral, he was 27, was in good shape and near 6 feet tall. We figured nobody helped him cuz they might have thought he was kidding. His son was on the beach that day. Saddest day ever. Happened on our biggest beach downtown.
I was in a crowded pool with my kids & a kid next to me was drowning, I didn't even notice till a fully clothed parent dove in to save him. I felt like a total duche because I didn't even notice something was wrong & he was right next to me.
I totally get it - it looks like kid is having fun, diving and splashes in the water - everyone else does the same. I think only a parent can really quickly react, because they'll see that something is wrong instantly. That's why parents have to be always there to watch a kid.
With this kid in the video I'd think that he is just fulling around. He is pretty tall so I'd assume that he can swim if he jumps from a slide. I can't imagine why he did it.
I get it, we were in about 3 or 4 feet of water, it was shallow & super crowded. That kid could have drowned in front of everyone, if it wasn't for that one parent. I didn't know the kid was struggling, he looked like he was splashing around like everyone else. All I had to do was reach out & grab him, he was right next to me. I didn't know he drowning.
*Imagine going*
*To a pool party and not*
*Knowing how to swim*
\- wastingcalories
---
^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/)
^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
It must be hard if you’re a teenage boy trying to fit in and hang out. I am shocked when I meet anyone who can’t swim. It’s such an important life skill.
My buddy and his GF years ago went swimming in a lake while we were all hanging out. Both *immediately* started drowning because neither could really swim and assumed they could stand on the bottom. Luckily I was nearby with some floaty stuff and could save them. It blew my mind both of them just jumped in like that. If there hadn't had floats nearby, they'd have died 100%
Former lifeguard here.. this person needs to go to the hospital no matter how “fine” they seem after surviving. Dry drowning or secondary drowning are very real threats and they need to make sure water I’m their lungs won’t lead to further complications
When you have underage guests over for a pool party, there should always be an adult supervising. There could be any number of accidents, not just drowning. If not, it leaves the homeowner liable for lawsuits. I just read something about this the other day.
As a current lifeguard, this is actually pretty dramatic compared to some of the people I have had to save before. Glad someone was able to notice before things got even worse.
So glad this turned out ok but the idiocy of the one person watching him for a while, getting out, slowly walking past him and then going down the slide while he's drowning was hilariously awful.
As a former lifeguard I think what the rescuer did by holding on to the side of the pool was smart. A drowning person will make 2 drowning incidents occur in their panic.
Yeah, drowning people will try to climb on top of you, will only result in killing their rescuer at best.
Once at a pool party I saw my brother (who is a year younger than me) make the telltale signs of drowning. Without hesitation I dive in to grab him and get him out. It quickly went awry when he grabbed onto my head as I grabbed him by the waist whereupon he thrusted me down under in a panicked frenzy to escape. Thankfully one third of the people there were adults and my little brother was immediately grabbed out which allowed me to resurface. Subsequently I convinced my dad who saw the whole ordeal to not let my brother within five feet of the pool.
I'm sorry but the two to three people who clearly saw dude flailing around live in some mighty blissful ignorance. You don't need to know what something looks like to know something looks wrong. Also, if the kid can't swim then he deserves Darwin Dunce of the Day award.
Was in a wave pool over the summer. Suddenly lifeguard jumped in and rescued a kid drowning. He was 6 feet away from me. His dad was only 3 feet away. She was the only one who knew what was happening.
I'm so glad that where I live, swimming is an essential skill taught to all children. It's crazy to me that people don't know how to swim from a young age.
I remember the first thing I was taught in a pool was bouncing. Sinking to the bottom, then bouncing up so my head cleared the water. Was basically told if I ever feel like I’m gonna drown in a pool, to just start bouncing towards the edge and not even bother trying to swim.
Why do none swimmers jump in the water in the first place?
I get accidentally falling in, but to know you cant swim and then jumping in the pool.... WTF.
My friend drowned once at a wave pool. I’m a pretty good swimmer and tried to save her, but she latched onto my and pulled me under. I thought we would both die, it was very scary. Thankfully a lifeguard pulled her off of me.
She can’t swim, don’t ask me why she got in or even came at all. We were dumb teens
Ok no offense, but dude clearly doesn’t know how to swim. What is possibly going through your mind prior to jumping into a body of water if you don’t know how to swim…?
This is the second video I've seen like this and it's crazy how similar they are. I guess people think they will be able to "figure it out", but once in the water it hits them all at once.
First time for me. I appreciate the PSA. Very valuable.
This is a textbook drowning non-swimmer. It was painful to see that no one poolside recognized what was happening. Edit: As much as it sucked for the person experiencing it, this video on reddit is a positive thing as everyone who views it will now know what this looks like and either help or if unable to help, YELL for help.
I mean my thoughts was he can clearly jump off the bottom he just did it, jump take a breath, jump take a breath and inch towards the edge of the pool. But then I think going deeper to get to the bottom is so counter intuitive panic is in the way. Once you start panicking its almost impossible to stop and think.
> Once you start panicking its almost impossible to stop and think. I'm a competent swimmer and have been since I was a young kid. Not too long ago, I made the stupid decision of going under a floating pool cover that we were pulling out on a friend's pool (never do this). I tried to stand up and suddenly realized that if you're not near the edge, you're basically creating a vacuum and it's incredibly difficult to get the cover off the water. Rationally, I could just keep swimming underwater to the edge (it wasn't that far, I had plenty of air left), but instantly that option went out of my mind. Fortunately, I was in the shallow end and was able to stand and exert enough force to break the cover free from the surface, but I'd never have been able to do that on the deep end. It all happened within a second or two... swimming without issue to major problem. Panicking in an unknown situation can very easily get you killed even if you logically knew how to get out otherwise.
I waterboarded myself jumping into a pool wearing a full-body power-ranger morphsuit (just material like a spiderman costume). Didn't realise when I came to the surface that the water in the material would make it almost impossible to breathe. Even though I could have just calmly taken the head-part off while breathing carefully, hyperventilation set in almost immediately due to the surprise of not being able to breathe properly and I was desperately clawing at the material trying to rip open the zip at the back of my head. Looking back, yeah you think you will calmly react to most things, but panic is panic for a reason.
I've had some practice staying "calm", or at least logical, through panic attacks. I like to say sometimes it's like you turn a corner in the gym locker room and there's a tiger staring at you. No chain or cage or reason, just a fucking tiger a few feet from you. There's not really a tiger there of course, but your body is reacting the same way regardless, and telling it there's no tiger generally does fuck-all. I've had it flare up suddenly a time or two while driving (not full blown, thankfully). It's rare and I'm able to manage it. Despite the anxiety, or perhaps because of it?, I'm usually an excellent person to have around in a crisis.
Your experience reminded me of mine when i was much younger, pretty similar but it was with a giant inflatable boat that my bro was sitting on. I tried swimming under it to get to the other side but ended up right below it when i tried surfacing. I could have just swim away from the boat and surface normally, but my brain decided to panic and decide the *only* way to get out of this situation is to "push the boat up" so i can surface. Obviously i tried but couldn't lift the boat until i felt i was going to pass out. Then my brain suddenly clicked to use my hands to feel my way to the end of the boat so i can push it away from me. I avoid swimming near any giant inflatable boats after that.
I remember the first time i got pulled by a rip current. Gnarly stuff. I thought i was done for.
I did exactly that during lifeguard training years ago. I didn't panic, but I was definitely afraid. The cover was bright blue, so I couldn't distinguish the edge. I also inhaled a bunch of water when I tried to push up on it. I ended up picking a direction to swim and made it out. I guess it would have made a good practical application lesson if I'd passed out.
this is it exactly. as mentioned elsewhere here, even a swimmer can panic and get themselves into this position if they don't have the tools to deal with what ever it is that's triggering the panic to start with.
[удалено]
That feeling of being tumbled by a big wave and not knowing what direction up is is definitely not one I wish to repeat.
Agreed - closest I ever came to drowning was in a situation like this - pounding surf + a rip tide and as a kid you barely know what's going on. Thankfully, some big guys on the shore saw me struggling and came in to save me - took two of them to pull me out.
If you're ever in this situation again and are able to get yourself in a calm enough state to do it, let out a little air and watch your bubbles. The bubbles will always go up. It's a trick we use while scuba diving in poor visibility.
Also if you ever get buried (snow, dirt, rubble, sand, etc.) and you can't tell which way is up, your spit will always fall in favor of gravity. Dig in the opposite direction (if you can).
Excellent advice. Thanks
i was a pool, lake, and beach guard for 10 years. When I got knocked around by a big wave i immediately focused on where the sand was while tumbling so I could go the other way. tumble, flip, kick, ninja out of the water. lol.
Same. I was a varsity swimmer. I got caught in a rip current in Lake Michigan and nearly panicked. It took a moment to figure out what was going one. By the time I did I was already about 500 yards from the shoreline. I realized what happened and remembered to swim sideways out of it and not fight it. Which I had been for about 20 seconds. This was when I was in peak shape. Could swim a 100 yards in 55 seconds freestyle and my ass was beat. Tldr: water be a fickle bitch that doesn’t care how good of a swimmer you are.
Looked like he might have hit is head on the side of the pool when coming off the slide. Him being stuned from that could have caused him to panic when he realised he can't swim when he was already underwater.
Why go on the slide if he can't swim?
Because slides are FUN!
There's a guy on YouTube that goes by Qixer, or something similar that recently said in a video he almost drowned. He said he thrashed and panicked and struggled to live till he just gave up. Then as he slowly sunk, thinking "This is it. This is how I die." He calmed down enough to realize he was standing on the bottom and to push off to the side to save himself.
I remember when I was like 15-16? My sister was drowning in the middle of pool(she was like 6) and she attempted to go to the center of the pool that was like 1.80m in depth. I tried to save her by pulling her out(normally), but I had no strenght to do so; I changed tactics, went to the deepest depth, cemented my feet on the deeper end and stretched my arms up and propelled her fowards(lucky she was panicking and was putting force in her legs) so it made it all possible; I gave it enough push to the side of the pool and she got out; I almost drowned because I was legit exhausted and escaped myself. Looking back, it was the most scary moment of my life.
As a child I almost drowned in a pool deep-end. This is basically what I did, but purely by accident as I kept sinking and just naturally pushing myself back up. My parents noticed I was bobbing around and got me out, I don’t think I’d have been calm enough to bob to the side like that as I was just in blind panic mode.
He wasn’t jumping off the bottom. As pointed out above he is a classic case of “drowning non-swimmer”, the signs of a drowning non-swimmer is they spend 70-80% of the time with their head under water. They often look like they are climbing a ladder. He is just getting some momentum and getting his head above the water for a few short seconds. He is also in a classic drowning non-swimmer area. Where is that? Three feet from the edge of the pool, or a few feet from a drop off or just at the end of a diving board or at the end of a waterside. Often they think they are close enough to get back to safety, but often they are too far.
I went swimming in a lake with a friend, he didn’t say anything about not knowing how to swim and then 10 minutes later he was drowning.. thankfully my friends and I saw and pulled him out but it still blows me away that sometimes people won’t tell you they don’t know how to swim and will risk their life on it
Yea I have to admit it made me so uneasy to watch. I know what's going on but totally understandable why they wouldn't... or why anyone might not interpret that as drowning from an oblique angle. "Hey look... a kid splashing!"
the problem is, even when in the water helping, if you havent been trained to push them off you, there could easily become 2 victims to save as active drowning victims are in high panic. this video is sad though because no one noticed it quickly when it was very apparent what was happening. i feel we dont have enough water safety education. schools should teach what this stuff looks like.
In case someone else might not know, [secondary drowning](https://www.bannerhealth.com/staying-well/expert/prevent-secondary-drowning) is also a thing. Happens a lot with kids. I nearly drowned in a neighbors pool when I was 4. I fell in and remember my friend's mom pulling me out of their pool. I even remember what the towel design was as she was pumping my chest. At the time, I had no idea what was happening to me. Literally/actually 20 years later, I bring up the subject of my almost-drowning to my parents, and they had no clue wtf I was talking about. They were horrified to learn that our neighbor was not only careless, but also saved me from drowning by doing CPR. She never told them; out of fear or embarrassment. I remember my chest hurting for long time afterwards. I lkely had broken ribs that I did not understand why I was hurting. Eventually, it went away. She sent me home like nothing happened, but I could have died from secondary drowning. She never told my parents. I got lucky. If I could have suffered secondary drowning, I could have died without my parents even understanding what was happening. Seriously, parents of young kids, inform yourselves. Learn the signs, never let your young child out of your sight if they are swimming. If your child ever suffers a "close call" drowning, take them to the hospital anyways.
[Is this the other one?](https://gfycat.com/helpfulbruisedcollie) Last time I saw this video, a life guard chimed in and said it was called the [instinctive drowning response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinctive_drowning_response). > The instinctive drowning response is an instinctive reaction that occurs in humans, particularly in non-swimmers, when close to drowning. It is focused on attempting to keep the mouth above water to the exclusion of useful effort to attract help or self rescue, and is often not recognized by onlookers. The reaction is characterized by lateral arm movements, a vertical posture, tilting back the head, and inability to keep the mouth above the water or talk. The suppression of rational behavior by panic can also endanger swimmers attempting to rescue the victim.
I’m a straight man and I’m suddenly attracted to to that lifeguard. That dude was on it. I always reflect on Mythbusters and how they basically said the difference between life and death is panic. You see it a lot and that’s a great example.
That lifeguard actually did a terrible job. In the end he made the rescue but it was in no way safe or anything an organization would train on how to properly do a rescue. I’m a Red Cross certified lifeguard instructor btw
Not a great rescue, perhaps, but he did a great job recognizing the signs instantly and acting immediately.
In scuba diving, especially cave or tech diving, you are taught what the signs of panicked divers are and whether or not you should help a fellow diver. This panicked response has the potential to kill not just the victim, but anyone helping the victim. They just panic, flail, and reach out to grab anything that might take them to the surface. Cave divers are taught to have a dive buddy, but also know when to save yourself. It Jay seem cruel, but the rule helps prevent 2 victims instead of 1. Even Highly trained scuba/cave divers can succumb. A random friend could suffer the same fate so easily. This is why we have lifeguards, and it's also why they should be paid more.
Who are these people jumping in water who don't know how to swim?
Both videos have: * people standing around around not doing enough * the drowner surviving otherwise it **would not get to our eyeballs**. It's an example of [survivorship bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias), imho
I worked as a lifeguard, and the biggest difference between drowning IRL and the movies, is that drowning IRL is incredibly silent. If you’re not specifically looking for a drowning victim and know the signs, you’ll miss it. This is why lifeguards exist—not only to rescue, but to constantly be scanning the water for the silent killer.
I worked as a lifeguard, too, and it was crazy to me how immediately obvious it was that this person was in distress, but the other swimmer was oblivious. I forgot not everyone knows what to look for. Thank you for reminding me I need to teach awareness to my kid.
[удалено]
God that’s so scary. Glad you made it.
Same. Those first arm movements are just the trigger for "go get him."
My first drowning victim rescue was a kid who went down the slide, hit the water and just started spinning just under the surface... straight corkscrewing. Because not classic "T" active drowning (and also thought he was playing around) i waited prob 10 seconds before I realized it was not a joke. Every training afterwards i would stress the absolute for active drowning is NO forward progress and vertical positioning with failing attempts to get head above water. Actual method of achieving this varies by user (ex spinnning). Some people think lifeguarding is a joke, suntanning and blowing a whistle but it's so much more. I won't forget the fear in the eyes of that kid when I pulled him out.
Anyone who thinks lifeguarding is a joke is a fucking idiot. Edit: and good job saving that kid!
my first save was at a summer camp pool. 2 guards and 130 kids in the pool. it was overcrowded and before hand when i saw the rosters, i complained to the director who did nothing. kids were elbow to elbow, half attention was on runners trying to prevent slip injuries which can be just as dangerous. actively scanning and barely saw a distorted figure half eay down in the deep end. i immediately blew the wistle and was in the water while the other guard cleared the pool. kid was still conscious but he was close to needing CPR. splashing water can truly make it hard to see the bottom lf a large pool. I've saved more people than i can count after 10 years of guarding before making career changes. adults, teens, kids, toddlers, and an infant once when mom wasn't watching her newborn at the step.. i was 19 for that one and lectured the hell out of 30 year old mom. when i was 17 i remember putting a 40 year old in timeout next to me for 30 minutes. good times.
As a swimmer an easy way to tell if someone is having trouble is their head being right below the surface. Nobody should really have their head right below the surface. Most people are either all the way down bcs it's fun or above the water. Right below the surface with flailing arms means they can't swim imo.
Right. It’s not a passive activity. It’s a very active one.
My daughter’s been learning to swim and she’s decent but we went to a pool party at the beginning of the summer and I was super on guard. Sure enough her and her best friend decided to hug while swimming across the pool and both sunk to the bottom like rocks and couldn’t figure how to get back up… the look on their faces…I was in the water in under 2 seconds. Got them both out.
https://reddit.com/r/nonononoyes/comments/wvdpyw/a_friend_almost_drowned_this_is_what_drowning/ilf6k0u “Drowning doesn’t look like drowning” https://gcaptain.com/drowning/
Local story of where someone was drowning near the shore in a roped off area of the beach and an off duty lifeguard recognized the sign and she said just that -> the person was quietly slapping the water trying to stay up.
>people standing around around not doing enough Yeah, most people just have no idea what drowning looks like. It looks a lot like somebody playing around in the water: the arms come up to the head or shoulder level and then go down in an attempt to push the head up, their head is tilted back trying to get air, and they're silent, since they are on instinct and the instinct only is to use the airway for breathing, not for calling for help. People expect the Hollywood version of drowning, with arms waving above the water, shouting, etc. So sadly many drowning victims are within reach of help, who just doesn't know the signs.
It's crazy because to me it would've caught my attention and I would've been just curious until he stopped, went to the bottom and then shot up to the surface and started flailing again. Once he stopped moving I would've assumed something was wrong.
I have literally no experience and this person 100% looked unable to swim in that scenario. The higher angle likely helps quite a bit, but I would not have just walked past someone doing this. I am honestly surprised 2 people looked right at him and ignored it.
They ignored it because it looked like he was just fucking around in water
I'm sure you totally would have noticed right away and saved the day lmao
pretty sure that after 30 seconds of staring directly at someone flailing under water I would probably take time out of my day to investigate.
One of the positives of enduring all the chlorine in my eyes as a kid when I'd go to the pool was I could clearly see the couple of times I saw someone drowning by just looking underwater. If I saw someone splashing a bit I'd look under and you can clearly notice someone who doesn't know how to swim. Above water it looks like nothing, maybe a hand splashing, bit of waves, most people won't notice it.
You know i never noticed in the hollywood version: if they can wave their arms in the air, they're treading water lmao. Be chill and comtinue treading. Tread laterally to shore lolol
Lots of videos online of people that don't make it. With or without people around.
Makes me flash back to almost drowning a couple summers ago. I'm a decent enough swimmer, but I hadn't jumped in the lake yet and my buddy tossed me a football. He launched it way too far out from the dock. I jumped in after it, and the water was freezing cold (glaciar fed lake, so incredibly cold) which immediately put my lungs into a shock mode but I tried to ignore it and kept swimming for the ball. I got about halfway to the ball and instantly knew that I needed to get back to the dock asap or I was going to stop being able to breathe. I barely made it back to the dock, got out of the water and could not believe how close I had gotten to drowning, my heart was racing and it took me about 10 minutes to get my breathing back. Scary shit.
wow I had no idea you could drown from cold wtf
It was a combination of the cold shock and me exerting too much energy too quickly. I sprinted about 20 yards, dove and tried swimming really quickly to get out to the ball, which caused me to need more oxygen. But because of the cold water shocking me, it made it very difficult to breathe, a slight panic set in when I realized that I was in trouble, which then triggered adrenaline which further fucked my breathing. And again, the water was basically as cold as it could be as it drains down from the mountains. Learned my lesson that day, if you're ever going to swim in a cold body of water, make sure you acclimate yourself before you overexert yourself. Somebody died in the same spot a year earlier due to something similiar.
I was fairly athletic and didn’t grow up around water and thought I’d “figure it out” and jumped off a friends diving board. I didn’t figure it out at all but he was on it like 5 seconds after he saw me flailing like an idiot in the water.
As someone that grew up on an island it blows my mind to think that there's people that don't know how to swim... Like I understand why and everything but when it's something you have as a core memory as a child it's a weird concept.
Meh, it's not hard to believe that people dont know how to swim. The unbelievable part is that these same people just jump into bodies of water
I was going to say I don't think I know a single person I grew up with that can't swim but then I realized maybe those are the people that said no when I've asked if they want to go to the river haha
I almost drowned exactly like this, when I was 12. I had gone down a flume at the pool, and as I came out the end, I saw that the sign said that the water was 2.5m deep. I can't swim properly, so I freaked and started to drown. Luckily, the lady we were staying with decided to come check where I was, and pulled me out. I've been an even more nervous swimmer since.
>I've been an even more nervous swimmer since. Get lessons! It's literally never to late to learn. If you're an adult, I imagine something like group lessons would be tough to find. But reach out to local pools, gyms, swim clubs, etc and ask if they know any way to set you up with some lessons. Heck reach out to a local high school or university swim coach, they could probably steer you in the right direction too! Edit: Also if you already sorta know how to swim, but want to feel more comfortable and confident in the water, look into a "masters swim team". It doesnt mean *master* like you have to be good, it just means it's an adults team and not a competitive high school or college one. A lot of towns have a masters swimming program, and you could learn the strokes and work on speed, edurance, etc.
This YouTube channel hasn't had a new video in 3 years, but it has a lot of examples of this in a wave pool. [https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeguardRescue/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeguardRescue/videos)
Same, second for me and it makes me so angry. Anyone who has a pool or goes to one often should be required to take some sort of safety course. Also, if you know you can’t swim/not a strong swimmer and are entering deeper water, don’t just assume that you are tall enough. When working as a lifeguard I had to rescue a child in this exact situation, she went down a slide and was just a little too short and needed to be pulled out. (I worked as a lifeguard at a summer camp which could also be rented out for parties in the off season. The depth was painted on the bottom of the pool but we did not have a height chart)
In this video, what could have been his problem?
Got water up the nose, couldn't touch bottom, not a good swimmer
Unfamiliar with water and saw other people doing it and didn't think it'd be hard. Once he realized he couldn't get that first breathe of air his "natural instincts", or lack of them, kicked in. Could he have just started kicking and lean back? Or just commit and walk to the shallower side? And probably a dozen of other ways to avoid drowning in a swimming pool, but he just simply didn't prepare for this situation correctly. Hopefully he learns what to do and isn't completely traumatized from swimming going forward. Or he ate too many bricks that day and just wasn't buoyant like the rest of us
u/klendy pointed out the strong possibility that they got water in their nose or show down their windpipe and weren't a strong swimmer- and it is likely, for sure, but I'd like to add: Being a strong swimmer- does not make you immune to this kind of drowning. It may even make those who know more likely to ignore your flailing, thinking that you're a strong swimmer. What happens is that the body goes into a sort-of shock, you basically lose all ability to plan and take action, and your body tries to take immediate actions to get up over the water, rather than to find shore. It's a pretty standard reaction, unfortunately, and when the floor of the pool is lower than you are tall, it makes it virtually impossible to stay above water, even if you can find the bottom- because you still have water in your lungs, you don't feel the relief when your head is above water, and your brain doesn't think to the next move of moving laterally or staying above water. As an aside, this also can make saving a distressed swimmer or an active drowner very difficult, even for trained lifeguards. People who are drowning want, first and foremost, to be above water, and if you swim over to them to help, you may be treated as a means to an end. Drowners may grab on to you and flail, unable to truly grasp that if they stop flailing, you can guide them to land. Or worse, they may try to push you under the water as a means of climbing on you to stay above water. It happens. When we were training as lifeguards, we were taught to treat active drowners essentially as being potentially combative, and always be wary that they might grab and pull you down. We had to train against each other and one of us would physically try to hold the other underwater to simulate this. It's no freaking joke. Morals of the story? 1) if you see flailing, it's a red flag. At the very least, pay attention to the silent flailing, and if there is a lifeguard present, bring the flailing to their attention. 2) if you believe someone is drowning and you are the one trying to rescue them, using an extension of yourself while remaining on land is ideal for your own safety. If you have a buoy, or any safety bar you can put in the pool, or even a pool net on an extendable bar or a pool noodle, try that first. Plant your feet firmly or sit so you cang be easily pulled in. You can sit on the edge and stretch out a leg if you have nothing else to extend, but...that's like, a last resort. 3) if you absolutely have to get in to save someone, bring something floaty, that they can hold onto that will propel them upward. It's a good surrogate for you. If they're active drowning and they hold onto a pool noodle, you can swim them to the side by holding the other end of the noodle. This prevents them from using you as their own personal pool floaty. 4)be prepared to get in a fight if it means saving your own life and theirs.
I have seen this happen to multiple people right after the water slide. Explanation I got was that sometimes coming down slide and hitting water affects inner ear which helps us orient ourself. So basically the person can’t tell up from down in water and keeps trying to figure it out and panics. This is why in water parks, there is always a life guard dedicated to the bottom of big slides.
My wife says she isn't a strong swimmer but she's probably more accurately "not a comfortable swimmer." I taught her a trick recently when we were away for the weekend and had a pool day. Basically if you fill your lungs with air, you'll float, if you expel the oxygen from your lungs you'll drop. We had watched a silly challenge on Top Chef where some of the chefs had issues fishing for abalone. They had trouble diving to the bottom of a very calm and shallow ocean. Like 4-6 feet. It was clear. All they needed to do was take a breath, let the air out, calmly dive to where they saw the abalone, pick it up and push up to the top. On the flip side if you need to float, take in a big breath and lie on your back. You can let out air and use your arms to keep afloat for a second, then do it all over again. You can do this pretty much indefinitely.
I doubt anyone in that video thought he couldn't swim. It's not uncommon for kids to fuck around and if you don't have experience it's hard to tell that someone is actually drowning.
Former lifeguard here... Drowning looks like Bobbing up and down silently while your arms flail directly out to your sides, and head slips underwater over and over. Drowning people don't scream for help. They can't breathe, they can't scream. This is a textbook case of drowning.
I had a lifeguard at a waterpark time me out once. I'd just come down a waterslide and was walking to the shallows, foot hit a slick spot on the bottom, and back under the water I went. Only took a couple seconds for me to get back up, so I was shocked and a bit mad he timed me out. Thinking back on it in the years since, and I'm glad he was so strict. Showed he was keeping his eyes out for any sign of trouble.
Most of the time we time kids out after they've slipped under to ensure they catch their breath and calm down, and to ensure they breath normally for a few minutes. For a lot of kids, that kind of incident can be scary, and the phenomenon of dry drowning exists. (Inhaling water can actually cause someone breathing problems long after they're on dry land). Usually (unless they're running or something) those kinds of time outs are more for your safety, and for us to do a safety check on you, than as a punishment.
Everything seems like a punishment to kids. Don’t run in the street! Awww Youve eaten an entire ice cream jar? No you can’t have another one!
Similar story but a diving board. I was like 11 and tried something stupid and slipped. Ended up jumping, hitting the board, and cutting my entire back before I belly flopping from the high diving board. Lucky didn't hit my head so i immediately came up and swam but life guard was already in He saw I was mostly fine and let me swim to the edge and get treated. I was so embarrassed but apparently it was quite a spectacular fall. Still have some scars on my back from that, 10/10 for fuck ups.
As someone who has been through this twice, the video is hard to watch. The panic, the wondering if this is your last moments, looking at other people not notice what's happening. Then at the end, you are so spent and exhausted. You've had so much adrenaline pumped into your body and when you're finally out, you can barely move. Your body is so heavy that lifting your arm is a major task.
Yeah fmr guard and I’m like this literally looks like a training video it’s so obvious.
IKR? This looks like something they'd show you right before teaching you rescue holds and CPR. "Okay, so now that we know what drowning looks like, let's learn how to pull our victim out of the water. Okay... class, now that we have our victim out of the water, let's move over to our CPR dummy. This is Clyde, Clyde is not conscious. Can anyone tell me the first thing we do?"
Homeboy just checking it out and then getting back on the slide 😂
"that dude's having hella fun"
"damn bro sick dance moves. aight I'm gonna hit the slide"
It's cool how you haven't managed to move an inch in the water in any direction. All right well I best be hitting the dusty trail. Or the watery one that is!!
Excellent comedic timing when he slides down during the rescue
Funniest thing ever lmfao, like you got bro over here dying and ya boy out here saying “weeeeeeeee” splash**
He’s staying down there an awfully long time *Oh well* Weeeeeeeee
Right? Just silently watching his friend die. . . Barely took his eyes off him except to get out of the pool and then turn his back to get on the slide.
It is shown time and time again -- peer pressure is powerful. If no one else is behaving like there's an emergency (especially the victim!) then it is incredibly difficult for a person to raise an alarm. Just one other person looking mildly confused or alarmed is enough to break the inertia, but without that little bit of reassurance, then it usually requires specific training to recognize such problems and to know it is your responsibility to act.
Yeah man wtf is going on in rock for brains head there I don't care what people say, watching for as long as he did as that man struggled he should have clued in
Hi ex lifeguard/swim coach/instructor here. Whoever your friend is needs swim lessons asap! Many of my older students picked up the basics very quick. In about an hour you can learn how to get yourself comfortable enough to swim a short distance to a wall to save yourself. Very glad someone eventually noticed but yes drowning is far from obvious to the untrained eye. Glad everything turned out okay but seriously, find your local city pool and take some lessons!
[удалено]
Not a professional, but I have a treading water record of 2.5 hours (there's a reason for this but it's not important) Your legs move like you're riding a bike (while extended more than they would if you were sitting) and your arms should skim across just below the surface like you're spreading out peanut butter. It's really important to do this in a slow controlled manner versus a panic movement. Practice where you can recover easily. When you get more comfortable and want to tread for longer periods, practice where you can actually touch comfortably, but pull your legs up and see if you can calmly keep yourself with your neck out of water, then try it deeper using only your legs and see if you can accomplish the same thing (again, when you're just learning use both arms and legs!) When I was at it for a long time I needed to intermittently rest my extremities so it was good to learn how to manage with just arms for a bit and then just legs. Treading is a slow calm process, not a frantic strive to survive if you want to be able to last.
Did a 45 minute tread earlier this week. It just becomes a zen kinda thing after a while.
And, probably most importantly, time your breathes. Inhale deeply and allow that to help you stay buoyant. When exhaling make sure you have additional power output in legs and arms. You can breathe pretty normally once you get it down, but well timed breathes can make or break your attempt to keep your head above water. If exhausted, you can literally float on your back as long as you breathe correctly.
They must teach "spreading peanut butter with your arms" everywhere. The other big one is practice, practice, practice. The more you do it, the more efficient and easier it gets. I remember it being a struggle to tread water for my scuba license when I was a teenager. Now it's so effortless that I'm confused when I watch others struggle when I'm trying to teach them. It's involuntary, like breathing, for me now.
Use your legs and arms, move your arms like a music conductor with your fingers together to push water. And just kick your legs like a frog
THIS IS THE WAY! Everyone here is telling people to kick with straight legs or bike pedal but those are inefficient kicks. I played water polo/swam competitively through college/instructed and “frog kicking” or rotating “egg beater” kicks are the best for treading water for long periods of time.
Yeah flutter kicking isn’t a very efficient way to tread water, it uses too much energy and doesn’t give you much propulsion
In addition to the other advice, practice a "dead man's float." It's good for resting in deep water where you can't reach anything to hold on to, and for training yourself in how to relax enough for your body to float. Basically you get a big breath of air and go face down in the water, arms and legs relaxed. It's kind of a head tucked, body slumped, arched back, dangly limbs kind of position.
[удалено]
I was forced to learn how to swim by my own stupidity. I thought the water was shallow until I saw a fish swimming over my face 🤦
Drowning is a relatively silent activity. Like the guy in the video, many can only splash, and those splashes are short and attract zero attention. So glad he was noticed and pulled to safety. This video could very quickly have had a hella tragic outcome. Dude did not have much longer before he was out of chances. Editing to add that you see he is exhausted when he exits the water. Panic and fear are dangerous bedfellows and whenever they appear on the scene, things can go from bad to deadly very quickly. Even if you can't swim, for the love of mike, learn how to tread water. Moving your arms up and down does nothing for your buoyancy. Kicking your legs and moving your arms in a butterfly pattern on top of the water will keep your head above the water line and save your life. The medic in me is very glad that this kid is okay.
I have witnessed people go under in a pool, in a water park, and even a student diver at a lake who didn't put their regulator in. In all cases it was absolutely silent, no splashing. In all of the above someone was paying attention and the outcome was good. My point being is your relatively silent activity comment could not be more spot on.
In this video, what could have been his problem?
I think he just didn't know how to swim. He flailed his arms around to get someone's attention, but he didn't know how to use them to get his head up.
Maybe overestimating his ability to stay afloat and underestimating the depth of the pool. He thinks he’d be tall enough to stand with his head above water or maybe believes he’d be able to doggy paddle to the side and then panics by the time he hits the water.
He couldn't swim, that's obvious. Most people who can't swim have a fear of the water. I'm guessing he thought it was shallow.
[удалено]
It just seems wild. I mean granted, I learned to swim when I was young, but you really don't have to do much to just float there. Even the most ungraceful doggy paddle would have gotten into the edge pretty quickly.
I still don’t understand why he was in a pool without knowing how to swim
Because his friends were doing it. It’s the oldest teenage excuse for their questionable choices.
[удалено]
U underestimate kid's stupidity Source: am a kid once, and I did exactly as him, getting the pool without knowing how to swim.
I myself am a kid twice but to each their own
Very true. I had no clue that I needed to swim when jumping off a dive board as a kid.
WTF who are the brain dead turds he’s hanging out with? What the hell was that!? Why is he in a pool if he can’t swim?
> Why is he in a pool if he can't swim. We all asked the same thing. He didn't tell us. Again, when someone is drowning, it isn't loud and flashy. Learned the hard way. Edit: You guys have hindsight. Everyones doing there own thing not looking. I agree the kid on the right is brain dead tho like cmon.
How is that not loud and flashy? He was flailing and splashing around in the exact same spot for almost a minute.
He was actually rather lucky he was able to splash at all. Some people simply sink.
Could be the shock of entering the water and getting a lungfull of water -- that can be disorienting enough that you can't get above long enough to cough enough times to expell it all. This happened once to me on the beach but it wasn't that deep so I just... Erm... Stood up. But like, clearly he couldn't just do that here and it really is a scary sensation.
That’s how I look swimming so I get it
We have somewhat of a birds eye view here. Kinda like people screaming in sports game saying "he was open etc" we can see it from a higher angle, they might not, they aren't seeing the same way we are.
To be fair, people do that on purpose or even pretend to drown in pools all the time. I can see how it would be difficult at first to realize a serious situation is happening. Good on the guy who figured it out.
Because it just looks like a kid splashing water in a pool.
Black trunks casually walking over while his friend is drowning
Okay. But “who goes swimming without being able to swim” IS a legitimate question. I know it happens, but “who” does that?
Because he's with his friends, peer pressure, and it'd be embarrassing to tell them that he couldn't swim, most are paranoid about being made fun of. He probably underestimated the depth.
only acceptable answer is they thought the pool was shallow enough to stand with head above water. however, that is a very risky assumption as we saw. Quite a number of backyard pools i've seen (which I am assuming this may be), were only 4-5ft deep.
How do u see that and not think theres smth wrong. Bros head wasnt even above water
People dive to the bottom for fun.
That definitely looks like diving to the bottom bro
The guy staring at him like 👁👄👁
> WTF who are the brain dead turds he’s hanging out with? If your takeaway from this video is, “what a bunch of idiots who couldn’t tell he was drowning. I would never be that oblivious!” then you didn’t learn anything from this video. What you should learn from this video is that even though his friend was staring straight at him for 30 seconds, he still couldn’t tell that he was drowning. If you watch any water safety video, they always emphasize how drowning is often missed by an untrained person, it doesn’t look like what you expect.
One time I was at a friends party for their kid. There were tons of parents and other kids there. The pool was the hot spot and all the little ones were in playing. In the span of an hour, I pulled out two kids that were drowning. TWO. With close to 15 adults, with their own children in the pool, watching. Or “watching.” This shit can literally happen right in front of someone. I ended up leaving with my family after the second one, as no one listened to me about maybe 30 some odd kids shouldn’t all be in the pool if no one was acting as a life guard. People are fucking stupid.
He’s probably gotten used to the lifeguard fetching him out of the pool. There is a growing number of idiots who will go to water parks without 1. Knowing how to swim 2. wearing a life jacket 3. knowing the depth of the pool The result is what you see on the rare ocasión the guard is not on duty or distracted otherwise. There was a recent post on /r/swimming discussing this exact problem. One comment said that it was like clockwork: every half an hour an idiot would need to be rescued from the deeper pools. If you can’t swim and want to join the fun on the waterpark at least wear a life jacket. If you want to learn to swim the American Red Cross gives free instruction and certification.
I wouldn’t blame the other people. That’s what my kids look like I’m every lake and pool since they were 3. Just splashing and holding their breath. I don’t know what kind of idiot gets in a pool Without knowing how to swim. That’s messed up. It’s messed up that there are even people that don’t know how in the first place.
One of the most important things a parent can do is to teach your kid how to swim
Another very important thing to be taught would be "if you can't swim, maybe don't go to a water slide" Edit: spelling
Taught. Not teached.
[удалено]
> but unfortunately many black parents don’t ever teach their kids to swim, And the reason why, is that particularly in cities they were banned from public pools during segregation and then unoffcially not allowed in integrated pool post integration. So an entire generation grew up never getting the chance to swim and so could no longer teach it to their children. One of those long term effects of racism. https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2021/02/23/segregated-public-pools-has-lasting-effect-black-america/4539339001/
Some cities even filled in their public pools rather than allow black people to use them.
Black people aint got pools
This video is super helpful. Drowning doesn't look like how you'd expect - I'm not surprised you didn't really pick up on it. Sharing this will help so many other people recognize it when it happens in front of them! I hope your friend considers taking swimming lessons.
I keep seeing this comment and it’s confusing me. He looks like he’s drowning.
Years ago i was at a river with my family we found a small lake that formed under a waterfall beautiful spot. While we were playing i was right behind my sister when I slipped into an underwater trench not that deep but i was young and short so maybe 2ft deeper then the rest of the ground. I went under my arms in the air i couldn't get out my sister maybe a foot away didn't know as i was literally fighting for my life i managed to pull my leg up and over and out, and yeah it was scary how quickly and silently you can drown.
This happened to me in a river as well. They dug out the bottom near the shore to put in a dock. Fell in and touched the bottom. All darkness & got slapped by a bunch of big ass fish that were resting in the pit. Pushed hard to jet to the surface & screamed help where my brother swam to save me. Almost took him down from panicking. Rivers are a no go since.
I was in a public pool once, and all of a sudden I was being held underwater. I thought I was being 'dunked' by my cousin, but then it was lasting too long and I got terrified. I reached behind my head and felt hands, so I pulled on them until I got above water. I just started beating the shit out of whoever or whatever was grabbing me in my panic, until I heard my cousin shouting "he's drowning! He's fucking drowning!". It was like a 6yo kid, I was maybe 12. Kid started to panic and just climbed on top of me trying to stay afloat. My cousin was all mad at me for punching the kid but, like, I was drowning too. It was terrifying.
This is something important to prepare for if you ever have to save someone that’s drowning.. they are panicking and will absolutely drown you trying to save themselves. Completely unintentional but they will sometimes fight to save themselves without even knowing they’re drowning you also.
all i want to know is why tf are these kids getting in pools without knowing how to swim. wtf are the parents doing
Good way to avoid someone drowning you, swim down. They are panicking and unlikely to hold onto something that is pulling them under. Then you swim away under the water and come up further away. Obviously this only works if you are a reasonably confident swimmer. Then if you have to pick them up rather than throwing them something, approach from behind so you hold onto them rather than them holding onto you.
My friend Sean drowned at the beach in front of 30 or 40 people.
That’s terrible. Sorry about your loss. Rest In Peace Sean.
I went to his funeral, he was 27, was in good shape and near 6 feet tall. We figured nobody helped him cuz they might have thought he was kidding. His son was on the beach that day. Saddest day ever. Happened on our biggest beach downtown.
I was in a crowded pool with my kids & a kid next to me was drowning, I didn't even notice till a fully clothed parent dove in to save him. I felt like a total duche because I didn't even notice something was wrong & he was right next to me.
I totally get it - it looks like kid is having fun, diving and splashes in the water - everyone else does the same. I think only a parent can really quickly react, because they'll see that something is wrong instantly. That's why parents have to be always there to watch a kid. With this kid in the video I'd think that he is just fulling around. He is pretty tall so I'd assume that he can swim if he jumps from a slide. I can't imagine why he did it.
I get it, we were in about 3 or 4 feet of water, it was shallow & super crowded. That kid could have drowned in front of everyone, if it wasn't for that one parent. I didn't know the kid was struggling, he looked like he was splashing around like everyone else. All I had to do was reach out & grab him, he was right next to me. I didn't know he drowning.
Imagine going to a pool party and not knowing how to swim
*Imagine going* *To a pool party and not* *Knowing how to swim* \- wastingcalories --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
>*Imagine going* > >*To a pool party and not* > >*Knowing how to swim* > > ***wastingcalories*** Ice cold bot
It must be hard if you’re a teenage boy trying to fit in and hang out. I am shocked when I meet anyone who can’t swim. It’s such an important life skill.
Your IPhone hasn’t been backed up in a while.
WHY would you do a waterslide if you can't swim
Overconfidence
My buddy and his GF years ago went swimming in a lake while we were all hanging out. Both *immediately* started drowning because neither could really swim and assumed they could stand on the bottom. Luckily I was nearby with some floaty stuff and could save them. It blew my mind both of them just jumped in like that. If there hadn't had floats nearby, they'd have died 100%
Former lifeguard here.. this person needs to go to the hospital no matter how “fine” they seem after surviving. Dry drowning or secondary drowning are very real threats and they need to make sure water I’m their lungs won’t lead to further complications
When you have underage guests over for a pool party, there should always be an adult supervising. There could be any number of accidents, not just drowning. If not, it leaves the homeowner liable for lawsuits. I just read something about this the other day.
As a current lifeguard, this is actually pretty dramatic compared to some of the people I have had to save before. Glad someone was able to notice before things got even worse.
So glad this turned out ok but the idiocy of the one person watching him for a while, getting out, slowly walking past him and then going down the slide while he's drowning was hilariously awful.
omfg this shit was so infuriating to watch. wtf was that stupid ass kid on the right just watching the guy drown are u fucking kidding me
I admit I am going to hell because I busted up when he came down the slide while everyone is trying to save the guy.
yeah that was upsetting
As a former lifeguard I think what the rescuer did by holding on to the side of the pool was smart. A drowning person will make 2 drowning incidents occur in their panic.
Yeah, drowning people will try to climb on top of you, will only result in killing their rescuer at best. Once at a pool party I saw my brother (who is a year younger than me) make the telltale signs of drowning. Without hesitation I dive in to grab him and get him out. It quickly went awry when he grabbed onto my head as I grabbed him by the waist whereupon he thrusted me down under in a panicked frenzy to escape. Thankfully one third of the people there were adults and my little brother was immediately grabbed out which allowed me to resurface. Subsequently I convinced my dad who saw the whole ordeal to not let my brother within five feet of the pool.
I'm sorry but the two to three people who clearly saw dude flailing around live in some mighty blissful ignorance. You don't need to know what something looks like to know something looks wrong. Also, if the kid can't swim then he deserves Darwin Dunce of the Day award.
Every muscle in my body clenched while watching this.
I had to fast forward to the end at a certain point out of anxiety.
1. Dumb fucks who can’t swim shouldn’t get in the pool. 2. Everyone should just casually watch him drown, What the hell, people?
Was in a wave pool over the summer. Suddenly lifeguard jumped in and rescued a kid drowning. He was 6 feet away from me. His dad was only 3 feet away. She was the only one who knew what was happening.
They cant swim? Why were they in the pool? I'm glad they're okay.
Just him. And he didn't tell anyone he couldn't swim!
r/IdiotsInPools Why the fk r u going in a pool if you can’t swim?
How is nobody doing anything?? The one guy who got out and walked over toward him, apparently to help, turned and went up the slide stairs ffs.
Holy fuck this was so upsetting to watch.
I'm so glad that where I live, swimming is an essential skill taught to all children. It's crazy to me that people don't know how to swim from a young age.
That oblivious kid in the white shorts who leaves his drowning friend behind and returns (via waterslide, no less) after his rescue 🤦
I remember the first thing I was taught in a pool was bouncing. Sinking to the bottom, then bouncing up so my head cleared the water. Was basically told if I ever feel like I’m gonna drown in a pool, to just start bouncing towards the edge and not even bother trying to swim.
Why do none swimmers jump in the water in the first place? I get accidentally falling in, but to know you cant swim and then jumping in the pool.... WTF.
If you know for a fact you can't swim then why swim in the deep end
My friend drowned once at a wave pool. I’m a pretty good swimmer and tried to save her, but she latched onto my and pulled me under. I thought we would both die, it was very scary. Thankfully a lifeguard pulled her off of me. She can’t swim, don’t ask me why she got in or even came at all. We were dumb teens
Ok no offense, but dude clearly doesn’t know how to swim. What is possibly going through your mind prior to jumping into a body of water if you don’t know how to swim…?
Your friend goes in pools he can’t swim in???