The new captain jumped from the
deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept
his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between
their anchored sport fisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,”
the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had
screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re
fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband
yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as
he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away,
their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms
of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”
How did this captain know – from
fifty feet away – what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is
not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain
was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The
father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching
television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then
you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever
people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a
sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this
story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving,
splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to
look for, is rarely seen in real life.
The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A.
Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the
water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little
splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an
idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider
this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and
under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who
will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent
or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch
them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look
like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine,
described the instinctive drowning response like this:
- Except in rare circumstances, drowning people
are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was
designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing
must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
- Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below
and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are
not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and
call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they
exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the
water.
- Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature
instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the
water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning
people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water
to breathe.
- Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response,
drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically,
drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop
drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward
a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
- From beginning to end of the Instinctive
Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence
of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning
people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds
before submersion occurs.
(Source: On Scene
Magazine: Fall 2006 (page 14))
This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and
thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not
always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress
doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in
their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings,
etc.
Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in
the water:
- Head low in the water, mouth at water
level
- Head tilted back with mouth
open
- Eyes glassy and empty, unable to
focus
- Eyes closed
- Hair over forehead or eyes
- Not using legs – Vertical
- Hyperventilating or gasping
- Trying to swim in a particular direction but
not making headway
- Trying to roll over on the
back
- Appear to be climbing an invisible
ladder.
So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK
– don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is
drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like
they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask
them, “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they
return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And
parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you
get to them and find out why.
