A friend of mine shared this link today (thanks Beth!) and I want to share it with you. When you imagine someone drowning, you picture a thrashing person calling for help. However, as I learned today, that is truly the case. A drowning person isn't thrashing and isn't calling for help.
First, I want to point out this line by Mario Vittone, "And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why." Any time your child is near water, if they are not making noise, you need to be concerned!
Dr. Pia described drowning using the following points in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine:
- 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))
Read this article, Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning, and then share it with your friends and family.