Water survival and how to avoid drowning

[Wildthang]

Thanks for all of the great advice Pine Martin! Reps coming your way brother!

[Faiaoga]

Great topic to bring up, especially when so much emphasis is placed on zombie attacks, nuclear warfare, carjackings and so on. Many people drown every year, far more than are killed by lightning, rabid wolves, sharks and other dangers that are headlined and become subjects of news specials. There are also many different water environments and potential dangers, too many to be covered at once. Thanks for raising the issue.

I cannot comment on ice fishing, river rafting and other topics I have no experience with. I do have some training in water safety, though, and have taught science with field trips in tropical seashore regions. Please let me suggest:

1. Learn to swim. Red Cross, Scouts, YMCA/YWCA and many other groups have swimming instruction. Even at a basic level, swim instruction can save your life. As a teacher, I am astonished that swimming and basic water safety are not required courses. Worse, I have taught in Pacific islands regions where swimming is not taught and where many locals (especially females) do not swim. I find this to be intolerable.
Parents, community leaders, advocates of minority empowerment and others concerned about their children should be putting pressure on schools and community organizations to require swimming and water safety instruction.

2. Promote water safety and survival swimmng instruction. Competitive swimming in a pool is not the same as staying afloat for hours in the open ocean. Good survival swimming programs exist; they emphasize breathing without raising the head above the water, side stroke and breast stroke techniques, the use of clothing and other objects as improvised floats and other importat skills. People can be taught to wear and use inflatable snorkelng vests; plastic bleach bottles can be partly filled with water, then attached to a line as a rescue device to be thrown.

3. Certification programs for teachers, youth leaders and caregivers can require water safety training. For teacher certification, I had to take basic Red Cross training in First Aid/CPR. While not a doctor or medic, I have this minimum training. Equivalent water safety training should also be required.

School safety is a big issue right now, and most of the concern is over guns and knives. I suggest that parents, taxpayers and community groups put a smilar emphasis on water safety training that is appropriate to their own region and communities.

Faiaoga
Red Cross Water Safety Instructor
NAUI certified SCUBA diver
Science teacher in Pacific Islands

[mountainmark]

Great topic fellas, and a good read Thanks!

[Faiaoga]

PineMartyn: Really, good practical advice. Because I do not go out on ice, I don't have these or need them. However, someone will probably use your idea some time. The advice on homemade equipment is great.

Your post reminds me of a story I read about the Pacific coral reefs, an area I do know. In the story, a young Peace Corps volunteer was showing off the nice canoe paddle he had carved. The paddle had a nicely carved end with a grip that fit comfortably in the hand of the volunteer. According to the story, an old fisherman looked at the end of the paddle, spat on the ground and said "Cut off the intricate end and make a more pointed end - your fancy design might kill you. If you are thrown from the canoe and have to swim to shore you must hold on to your paddle. When you are washed on to the reef, push the pointed end of your paddle into a hole in the reef and hold on for your life. If you do not, you may be washed back off the reef to be drowned." I am not much of a canoe paddler but that story rings true to me.

The safety device for working on ice seems to be equally well-founded in experience. Faiaoga.

[Wildthang]

Speaking of ice fisherman, most years lake Eerie freezes and hundreds of people go out on the lake to catch lake perch, which is considered a delicacy in these parts. Those little fish are quite good, and must be as addictive as most recreational drugs. The reason I sat they are addictive is because when the ice begins thinning and is considered no longer safe, the news channels broadcast this, and warn everybody to stay off the lake ice.
Do these people listen, oh nooooooooooo! They keep going out there with their trucks, ATV's, and ice shacks until one day the ice shelf breaks free and hundereds of people begin drifting out towards Canada and most of the time none of them know it until somebody decides to go home and drives up on huge water gap between the ice drift and the coast. Then everybody panicks and calls 911. This in turn causes the rescue squads to spend $300,000 dollars to rescue the people that ignored all of the warnings because they wanted more lake perch.
This happens almost every year that the lake freezes, and is the most stupid thing I can imagine.
The local authorities have finally said that the next time this happens, people will be billed for the cost of their rescue................serves them right I think! The other redeeming thing that happens is that the ones with their trucks out there usually loses their truck and local salvag companies go out and get them which then becomes their property. This is truly an amazing phenoma that I will never understand!

[Wildthang]

Oh, another good tip on how not to drown, Dont swim drunk!

[ubercrow]

One thing I thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is in white water is to keep you feet pointing down water because the rocks will beat the hell out of you and you do not want your head and face smashing them.

I spent one summer doing a lot of kayaking when your not real good at the roll you can spend a lot of time swimming. lol

[PineMartyn]

One thing I thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is in white water is to keep you feet pointing down water because the rocks will beat the hell out of you and you do not want your head and face smashing them.

An excellent point, ubercrow. My wife and I took an intensive, week-long white water canoeing course and we were reminded over and over and over again that whenever we wiped out in rapid (it happened several times every day), we were to float on our backs, keeping our feet up as high as possible and to make sure our feet were downstream. We could slow our travel downstream by essentially doing a backwards butterfly stroke. In this way, we could look down the length of our bodies and see where we were heading downstream, feet first. Keeping our bodies horizontal with feet up high prevented us from hitting submerged rocks and helped us see visible dangers in order to avoid them or brace for them when they were not avoidable (ouch!).

Another drowning risk in moving water that's not been mentioned is a leg trap when fording a stream. As a canoeist who has had to wade his canoe upstream in fast water, I know that one of the greatest dangers is a leg trap where you get a rock or object stuck behind your calf or ankle and the water pushes you backward. Once you're in that horizontal position with the weight and force of the water rushing over you and holding you down, you can't get up without assistance, and water rushes up your nose like you're being water-boarded. If you're alone, you're a goner. The danger posed by a leg trap is something that is widely discussed and known in the whitewater paddling community, but it's something that needs to be mentioned in other outdoor communities. You can drown in just a foot of water.

Here's a very good video by a fellow who knows what he's talking about on the correct method of fording a stream or shallow river.



Hope this helps,
Martin

[ubercrow]

Yeah water “traps” can be deadly.. especially in fast water.

Be careful on log jams getting out of fast water it can just pin you into the logs and hold you there to die. Only grab the outermost logs where your body will not get pinned. A lot of people panic and will grab anything.. that can be deadly.
Log jams can be so deadly they usually just make me cringe and avoid them what happens a lot is a person will hit one and they will have space under the water so it will suck them under and in and that’s the the end.. there is no way to pull a person out thousands of pounds of water pinning a person in a jumble of logs they usually have to wait until the water dies down and try to pull a rotted torso or few bones out if they are lucky enough to find them.

Always stay up water from a tipped boat.
Another deadly thing is to be on the wrong side of a tipped boat you can get trapped easily. I have seen plastic canoes wrap competently around rocks like they were a tarp and nothing would pull them off, not even wenches or trucks. If you get caught in between it is probably your grave.

[prariewolf]

Remember that Ice forms on the bottom of rivers/streams . The water can be flowing on the surface yet there is ice on the bottom..