It’s a cliched scene in TV shows and movies - someone accidentally falls into calm water - maybe a deep pool or a calm lake - and start screaming “I can’t swim!” and flailing their limbs. Then our hero jumps in and saves them.
Does this actually happen in the real world? It seems to me that even if you’d never swam before in your life, you could intuitively figure out enough to tread water for a few minutes. You push down, and your body gets pushed up. Simple.
I could understand a non-swimmer going under rough waters quickly, or calm water after a while if they couldn’t get out for some reason, but would a person who can’t swim drown if they jumped off a diving board into a deep pool?
You’re ignoring panic. Once you start flailing around, you start to swallow water. You also get tired out and start to sink – which makes you panic more.
The other posters are correct. It’s panic that screws you up. Instinctively humans know how to swim (you can find videos of new born babies swimming).
Our big brains get us into trouble here. People panic, they drown. Every other animal on the planet I can think of if you throw them in the water they will swim out just fine (I’ve been swimming with horses even…not an animal you think of as a swimmer).
The question that occurs to me while watching the same: How many people can’t swim? I’d think that most kids are taken to the pool/river/radioactive cesspit at least once.
I “pretty nearly” drowned at about age 15 (scare quotes because I don’t know if my companion would/could have saved me). It was a small pond, and it turned out to be much deeper than I anticipated. I stepped off into a deep area, and the surprise + not being much of a swimmer had me realizing that I was in the process of drowning, which increased the panic.
It was only by forcing myself not to panic that I saved myself. It wasn’t that I couldn’t swim a lick or was ignorant of basic buoyancy, so once I took about 2 seconds to calm myself, I was able to dog-paddle/cavort to a shallower area.
It sounds ordinary, but it really was close. That, and the time I almost hung myself (by accident).
Worse, that panic can kill someone trying to rescue the non-swimmer. People panicking this badly tend to grab onto their rescuer without thinking about things like “don’t trap their arms or they can’t swim, either” or " don’t continue to flail around when hanging onto the rescuer, or you’ll wear that person out."
Last week my 4-year-old nephew stepped in too deep. He didn’t panic. Didn’t make any attempt to swim or to get out, either. He just held his breath and stood on the bottom of the pool, calmly waiting for me to notice him.
As a lifeguard we were taught that the last thing you want to do is go into the water after a drowning person. Far better to throw them a rope or life ring or something.
If you must go in after a drowning person you are taught to approach them underwater. That is the LAST place a drowning person wants to go. You grab their legs and turn them so you can slide up behind them. Point being YOU maintain control of the situation. Then tow them to shore. If the person does get a good handle on you and starts to drown the both of you take them underwater if you can. Almost always the freaking person will let go in an attempt to get back to the surface. If you must you are not amiss slugging the person if you have to to either knock them out or just stun them enough so you can save them (bit of a last resort but the alternative of one or both of you drowning can merit it).
Something similar happened to my daughter, when she was about one or two, and hence too young to ask what had happened. While visiting a neighbour, with lots of people round the pool, I saw her at the bottom. I don’t now how long she’d been there, but I yelled for someone closer, and in a swimming costume, to get her out. (She’s fine now, more than 20 years later, happily married and a high-school teacher). What is odd is that she went to the bottom: I thought that the human body would normally float, and not sink.
Usually this is so, particularly with typically overweight Americans (fat floats).
If you are physically fit you might sink. Personally I am nearly neutral buoyancy. If I hold my breath I float, if I exhale I sink. I had a roommate in college who was a body builder and had exceptionally low body fat percentage. He flat out sunk in water and had to swim to stay afloat (he loved swimming though so he was fine). He told me he could hold a kickboard and still sink. :eek:
On the flip side my far too overweight dad, also an avid swimmer, was trying to goof around with me when I was a teen and swim underwater between my legs. To his dismay he floated so well he literally could not pull himself under water for more than a moment before popping back to the surface.
One of my fears is seeing a swimmer drowning, and having no rescue device available. It would be very hard to go get the flailing/panicking swimmer without any flotation assistance.
And if anyone were watching and waiting for an experienced swimmer to go rescue the person, it’d be hard for them to understand that it might be a death sentence for two people.
Really…know where the life preservers are at. Know how to use them.
Just chiming in to say that I float like a rock… always have.
Even now that I’m over 200lbs (Good Lord, I never thought I’d see the day when), I still can’t do a dead-man float on my back, without holding on to the edge of the pool.
I also have a bit of a fear of getting my head underwater, which definitely doesn’t help matters much…
My mom grew up on a small farm in southern central Iowa, and the only water around was either flowing too fast to be safe, or streams shallow to wade only in. She didnt get exposed to real still[ish] deeper water until she married my Dad and came to western NY.
me? I learned to swim before I could walk, and still ended up getting sent to swimming lessons in the summers [so I ended up with the Red Cross Lifesaving class by the end] My brother also learned to swim as a baby. We were both taken into the lake to splash around [diaperless, I have seen pictures :D] around 7/8 months old or so. My mom can barely dog paddle. Danny and I swim like fishes.
To be honest, I love swimming and have trouble understanding people who refuse to learn to swim because they might drown [in a pool, with a swimming teacher and a lifeguard] though I am willing to let them not learn to swim without harassing them. I just dont understand it
I took swiming in high school, and never learned how to paddle or stay afloat. The only thing I could do if thrown in would be to lie on my back and try to kick my way to an edge.
When I was young, I got into trouble, even when I really knew how to swim, because I was nervous at being in the deep end of the pool and because my mom was right there next to me. I went under, and grabbed onto the nearest thing to hoist myself up.
Unfortunately, that was dear old mom! So, she went under, and she grabbed onto the nearest thing to push herself up - me! So we both panickjed together and kept shoving each other under the water to gasp for breath. (When we would have been just even had we sank and then "walked over to the pool wall four feet away.) All in all, not a remarkably inspiring experience.
I learned to swim when I was about six years old so it’s always odd to me when adults don’t know how to swim. This thread is really interesting and makes a lot of sense.
Well there’s your problem. The dead man’s float is mean to be done on your stomach, face-down in the water. It’s a much easier way to float, but you do have to get over the fear of floating with your face under the water.
though I am willing to let them not learn to swim without harassing them. I just dont understand it 