It’s the same damned story, every damned summer - people die while boating or floating because they won’t wear life jackets. I’m starting to run out of sympathy for this - who doesn’t know at this point that you can die from this?
Life vests are important, yes, but I’m aghast that adults don’t know how to swim! IMO, it’s one of those essential things parents should teach their kids – and as young as possible.
This past weekend, my husband spent 45 minutes in a pool trying to teach another couple’s kid to swim because they were too lazy to do it themselves. They just pulled swimmies on his arm and expected the other kids to make sure he didn’t drown. He’s 4 years old and old enough to know, at a minimum, how to tread water, especially since they frequently visit his uncle who has a swimming pool. But they just sat and ate while my husband repeatedly showed him how to blow bubbles and paddle to the side.
I think it’s forgivable – as long as you never plan on being near water.
I feel so sorry for those poor kids.
I don’t know how to swim, and my parents had a cabin on a lake, and a joint vacation home at the Ozarks. We had a motorboat and a pontoon. No one ever showed me how to swim, though I can float on my back. It’s amazing I ever made it out of childhood alive.
“Row a watercraft to them”??? If only these guys had had a boat!
My take on that: Don’t push someone out of a boat period.
See also the horror movie “Open water 2” (haven’t watched it myself, but the description is about “Don’t jump into calm water from a yacht if the ladder is not down.”
This would add tip nr. 3: Always, always count twice if everybody is on board before driving away. (Based on a real-life event). And yes, the movie, though low-budget, is very horryfing…
Serioulsy, how many people are NEVER near water that is over their heads, in their entire lifetime? Swimming, IMO, is as essential as knowing basic lifesaving techniques, such as the Heimlich maneuver and stop, drop and roll, IMO.
I think that’s what he was getting at, like saying “I don’t think you have to learn to cook - so long as you never plan to eat.”
Reminds me of one of my favourite PSAs on the subject. It’s a simple shot of two very young kids sitting quietly in a canoe, wearing life jackets.
Narrator: You know how important water safety is, and you always make sure your kids have their life jackets on. But what about you? [camera pans back, shows canoe is completely isolated, and over the side some air bubbles float to the surface] Yeah… they didn’t need you, anyway.
Not quite. If you find yourself without the survival skill of knowing how to cook at least there’s restaurants, convenience food at the grocery store and/or Aunt Martha down the street to mooch off of if you’re desparate. If you don’t have the survival skill of knowing how to swim and suddenly find yourself in need, there’s no way to order/buy/mooch your way out of that one.
The second and third guys to jump in the water must have had a special kind of stupid. (That, or it seemed like a good idea at the time because they were drunk) One of your buddies is flailing around in the water. A second buddy has jumped in to rescue Buddy 1, and now Buddy 1 and Buddy 2 are flailing around in the water. Most of us, at this point, would figure that jumping in the water to save Buddy 1 didn’t work, and that it was time to think of something else to do.
I used to be annoyed that my parents would make me wear a life jacked when I went on my grandpa’s boat. I was a good swimmer (at the time). I tried to explain that even if I fell off the boat I could certainly make it back to shore (or a dock) without a problem or tread water for as long as it took to get me back on the boat. Then she explained that even the strongest swimmers will still drown if something happens that they get hurt or knocked out when they fall in. That always stuck with me.
From the Idaho State Journal story:
Wasn’t this a Family Guy episode?
Without reading the link, I’m going to guess that the OP needs to add a further bullet point of, “Don’t drink and swim.”
It reminded me of a crane accident
(If you haven’t seen this before, scroll down one picture at a time so you can really take in how many things had to go wrong here).
It appears from what the police are saying that none of the beer that was taken had been consumed yet.
All of the guys but the first could swim but panic makes even a strong swimmer helpless. I can’t remember one summer in the 35 years I’ve lived here that someone didn’t die needlessly on the reservoir or river below it. Most of the time because they ignored the posted signs and acted like nature didn’t apply to them.
Procreation really should be more difficult. Any moron can figure out insert tab A into slot B.
There was an ad on TV quite some time ago that showed some adults in a boat with no PFDs on. I’m not sure what the product was. I sent an email to the company and told them I thought that this was a very poor image, considering the huge number of drowning deaths in this country every year. The response was along the lines of “the men in the ad were excellent swimmers and were in no danger at any time.” :rolleyes:
Not everybody has access to a pool or a pretty lake. Or to somebody willing to give them swimming lessons. Most schools do not have swimming pools.
I can swim OK in a pool but would never go out in a small boat without a life vest.