Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning

Taken from On Scene, The Journal of U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue, Fall 2006, pg. 14
Excerpts also taken from a blog whose writer I cannot remember the name of.


The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water.  A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored boat and the beach.  "I think he thinks you're drowning," the husband said to his wife.  They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar.  "We're fine, what is he doing?" she asked, a little annoyed.  "We're fine!" the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard.  "Move!" he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners.  Directly behind them, not even ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning.  Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, "Daddy!"

How did this captain know - from fifty feet away - what the father couldn't recognize from just ten?  Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect.  The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience.  The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television.  If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that's all of us) then you should make sure that you know what to look for whenever people enter the water.  Until she cried a tearful, "Daddy," she hadn't made a sound.  As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn't surprised at all by this story.  Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event.  The waving, splashing, and yelling that television prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response - so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water.  And it does not look like most people expect.  Most people assume that a drowning person will splash, yell, and wave for help; and why wouldn't they?  That's what we see on television.  Without training, we are conditioned first to think of drowning as a violent struggle that is noisy and physical.  It is not.  To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) - of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult.  In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening.  Parents - children playing in the water make noise.  When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

This is not to say that a person in the water that is shouting and waving is fine and doesn't need assistance.  They are in what is known as aquatic distress.  They are not yet drowning, but realize that they are in trouble and still have the mental capacity (and lung capacity) to call for help.  Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn't last long - but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue.  They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Characteristics of the Instinctive Drowning Response:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements.  Physicologically, 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.
5. 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.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:

• Head low in the water, mouth at water level
• Head tilted back with mouth open
• Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
• Eyes closed
• Hair over forehead or eyes
• Not using legs - Vertical
• Hyperventilating or gasping
• Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
• Trying to roll over on the back
• Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder

So, if someone is in the water and everything looks OK - don't be too sure.  Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don't look like they're drowning.  They may just look like they are treading water.  One way to be sure?  Ask them, "Are you alright?"  If they can answer at all - they probably are.  If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them.

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