It’s summer on the northern hemisphere, which means people are going to beaches, rivers, lakes, pools and water parks. That means people are at risk of drowning. Hollywood has given us a false impression of what drowning actually looks like, and it costs lives.
Drowning is not splashing and screaming for help. It is silent, undramatic and over in seconds.
Below is video footage of an actual near drowning that illustrates how undramatic it is. People swim right by the drowning boy and have no idea he’s drowning. This is real and in real time.
The little boy in the video survived. Many children don’t.
An adult swimmer engaging in the instinctive drowning response during an active drowning may struggle for 30 to 60 seconds before they submerge and don’t come up. A child may only last 20 seconds before they go under and stay there.
Small children struggle less before they submerge for the last time.
What does the instinctive drowning response look like?
Splashing, if there is any, is minimal.
A drowning person’s body is vertical in the water.
Their face is tilted up towards the sky and their mouth is usually open.
You may only see their face barely poking above the surface as they try to keep their mouth out of the water.
Their face or mouth may bob up and down repeatedly on the surface, then they start to submerge completely and resurface over and over.
Their eyes are often closed, but look glassy and unfocused if they’re open.
They might have a panicked look on their face.
Their hair may be slicked down on their face, and they aren’t trying to brush it back or aside.
Their arms may be stretched out to the sides as if they’re trying to leverage themselves out of the water.
They might look like they’re climbing an invisible ladder or doggy paddling, but they aren’t moving in any direction.
(Exception: If there is a current, it may pull them along. They will still be vertical with their head tilted back and bobbing up and down.)
Drowning happens partly due to physics and partly due to biology. Human noses have nostrils pointing downward. If you put an open, empty glass in water, the air will stay trapped in it until you tip it and let the air bubble escape.
A person who is drowning instinctively tilts their head back to keep their mouth out of the water, and it’s like tilting the glass when they start to submerge. Water gets into their nose, goes down their throat and causes spasms in the larynx as the airway tries to protect itself. Imagine how hard it is to get a good breath to cough when you choke while taking a drink of something. It’s the same spasm, except a drowning person can’t clear their airway.
A drowning person can’t breathe enough to call out or reach for help. They are using all their body’s energy to stay above water and breathe.
It may look like they’re playing around.
They aren’t.
They are dying.
Losing consciousness in drowning is a cumulative effect, not something that happens after they’re under for x amount of time.
A drowning person can’t get enough oxygen because of the spasm in their larynx. Their struggle uses more oxygen than they’re getting, carbon dioxide builds up and they can’t stay conscious.
A cessation of struggle and the final submerging means consciousness may have been lost or is being lost. The person might jerk around underwater– this is likely convulsions from the lack of oxygen. The spasm keeping the larynx shut relaxes and lets water into the lungs (wet drowning) or it may stay shut and the person suffocates that way (dry drowning).
The person may sink completely if water is going into their lungs. They’ll usually survive if they’re rescued right as they reach this point, but the longer they’re down, the smaller their chances of survival.
Even people who swim well will go into the instinctive drowning response if they end up in trouble in the water. Somebody knocked off a boogie board or getting a leg cramp can go into distress very quickly and easily.
It’s called the instinctive drowning response for a reason. It’s reflexive, not a choice.
Sometimes asking a swimmer who appears to be in trouble if they’re okay can make all the difference. If they can’t respond to you because they’re so focused on staying above water, they’re probably in trouble.
Always swim with a buddy. If you’re watching kids at a pool, put your book or phone away and watch them. Don’t use your ears to rely on screams for help or splashing sounds because it will not happen unless somebody else sees the drowning and yells to alert others, and by then it may be too late.
If your kid is loud in the pool and they get quiet, it may be because they’re drowning and need help. Parents have literally watched their children drown, and people will swim right past a drowning person without realizing it because they don’t know what real drowning looks like. You can thank Hollywood for that.
Here is video footage fishermen caught of a raccoon drowning in a river.
Watch how fast it happens.
That could be your two year old right next to you.
* * * TW Actual animal drowning footage. The raccoon did not survive. (Poor baby… ). * * *
Go to 1:27 if the video doesn’t automatically put you there.
The raccoon steps off a ledge, is surprised to hit deep water and gets dragged along by the current. It sounds like the fisherman tried to catch the animal with his fishing line, but wasn’t successful.
Animals have the same instinctive drowning response that humans do; head back, a panicked face bobbing in the water, little to no splashing. I’m showing this to illustrate the instinctive part and how fast it happens.
Lifeguards are trained to look for the instinctive drowning response, but it pays if you know the signs, too, because that knowledge will save someone’s life.
~* Please reblog this to spread drowning awareness and save a life. *~
it’s kind of a shame that the “don’t tread on me” rattlesnake image is specifically a right wing thing
because that image and text are just about the best visual representation of “do no harm but take no shit” ever
Same?
I’m especially upset because I used to use that flag as a personal symbol and talking point, because there used to be a lot of rattlesnakes killed out here for no good reason – given that if you just don’t pester them you chances of getting bitten are minimal. It was a good way to talk about that.
And if you put that on a human scale, it seems to be a fierce sort of plea for the people on high to respect those lower down. Which is the last thing the Tea Party stands for. >.<
And especially given that rattlesnakes care for their young, I’ve thought of re-purposing it recently. To say that our communities will protect those that others disrespect (immigrants, LGBTIA+, disabled) no matter what threats we may face.
Yes! I would so want this if I thought it would take off.
SAME. There’s a very fiercely independent and anti-authoritarian part of me that would love to be able to claim this.
Maybe it’s time for a redesign or a slight touch up?
New rule: Gadsden flag in blue and white instead of black and yellow is now left-libertarian, anti-authoritarian, and pro-weirdo. Gadsden flag with the snake in pride colors is that but with a very explicit MOGAI focus.
“I keep expecting more from the plotline than what’s currently here,” one publisher wrote. “What if it was about sisters who were twins, and one had Charcot-Marie-Tooth and one didn’t? That would create a more important conflict.” Another said that Mia Lee’s character didn’t seem suited for a lighthearted story. Finally, my agent told me, “I just don’t think people are ready for this type of story for this type of character.”
What she meant is that Mia Lee, my sassy, YouTube-loving heroine, differed too much from the convention of what a disabled kid is supposed to be like. There are very few stories about kids in wheelchairs, and there are even fewer with a disabled person who is cheerful and happy. Disability is always seen as a misfortune, and disabled characters are simply opportunities to demonstrate the kindness of the able-bodied protagonists.
First and foremost: IT HAS BECOME VERY CLEAR TO ME THAT LGBT CONTENT IS NOT INTENTIONALLY BEING FILTERED OUT
I checked several LGBT related tags and the tags were still full of content with the filter on. I checked several porn tags, and they were totally empty. It’s legitimately meant to only filter adult content, anything else being marked as sensitive content is a bug and not done by design.
You can also mark something as sensitive when you post it
The same thing happened with Youtube. Filtering content is NOT EASY, there were bound to be problems like this.
one of the problems of “big data” and anything involving trying to extract meaning from language through computers is that the state of the art technology (so-called AI, deep learning, neural nets) tend to recreate bias if there is any bias in the data they are trained on. What happened with youTube was pretty clearly that they were going by “what are the attributes of videos that get reported a lot?” and the neural net noticed that videos with lgbt content tend to get reported a lot. so the neural net assumes, because it is a dumb robot with secret methods, that lgbt content is offensive! it’s almost definitely the same thing going on with tumblr, but probably with worse algorithms, because tumblr.
it’s probably not “malicious” in that probably an engineer didn’t sit down and write out “gay = bad” in a line of code, but it is negligent in that they didn’t CHECK if their algorithm replicated existing bias. this is a continual fucking problem in the field and it’s irresponsible and bad engineering to fail to PLAN FOR IT.
That’s true. Engineers in machine learning should be well aware of this issue at this point and it’s pretty embarrassing that they let things out into the wild without fixing this.
“Known issue with past iterations of this kind of car, cars’ brake pads randomly burst into flames” “Eh, I’m sure we did it right. Roll it out!”
“it’s probably not “malicious” in that probably an engineer didn’t sit down and write out “gay = bad” in a line of code, but it is negligent in that they didn’t CHECK if their algorithm replicated existing bias. this is a continual fucking problem in the field and it’s irresponsible and bad engineering to fail to PLAN FOR IT.”
just repeating this part for emphasis
I feel like this is what what the testing phase of development is supposed to notice
Oh, it is.
I’m gonna go ahead and guess that they don’t have a QA department, AND don’t require that devs do it.
So this actually happened today. For some background, I am the kitchen manager at a small restaurant in a small country town. We have been having some complaints over a few menu items that were recently changed so I have been slowly rolling things back.
One of those menu items is our mac and cheese. Not too long ago, our owner decided she wanted to make our mac and cheese gluten free to fulfill the requests of a few customers. Since the change, it has been our #1 complaint and sales have been cut in half. So, I decided to order regular pasta for 99% of orders and keep the gluten free for requests. So far, so good. We have had a lot of compliments and a lot more empty plates coming back. I let all of the servers know but hadn’t told the owner yet because she was so adamant about keeping the gluten free pasta, even though just about everyone hated it. I figured I could just go to her with the increased sales later since she isn’t having any sort of dissenting opinion now. Ya know, ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
Well, today, on my day off, we had a 3 year old girl order the kids portion of mac and cheese. She also has Celiacs. This girl had apparently ordered the mac and cheese several times in the past couple of weeks with no problems, so her mom did not notify anyone of the allergy this time. About 2 hours ago, I got a call from my boss telling me that my decision put the 3 year old girl in the hospital and the mom had called to let us know she would be suing us since it does still say “gluten free” on our menu. I have now been suspended for 2 days until the owners can figure everything out. If the mom sues us, not only am I out of a job, it will sink the restaurant and everyone will lose their jobs. Not to mention it will financially ruin our owners and crush their dreams. So I guess we’ll see.
TL;DR: A 3 year old girl with Celiacs was rushed to the hospital after I ordered regular pasta for our restaurant without telling the owner. Now the mom is threatening to sue us, and not only is my job in jeopardy, but the restaurant itself.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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