RNLI float to live.

[pyrojames]

Many years ago, sailing with some friends, we anchored off a beach in Sydney, and we all swam ashore. They were all keen regular swimmers, and while I have spent hours swimming in the sea/surf and messing around in swimming pools I am not a strong distance swimmer.

My friends swam off ahead of me and I began to tire. Then I really began to realise that I was running out of stamina to swim much further. There were other boats about, but rather than yell at them, I tried to push on. I very soon realised that I was really struggling and had little breath left. At that stage i didn't have the breath to shout, or to swim, but recalled that lying on your back and very gently kicking would keep you afloat.

It took me about 3 or 4 minutes to recover my breath, rest some muscles before rolling back on to my front, and swimming ashore. My friends never noticed, and I never told anyone about it at the time. One of very few close shaves I have had.

 

[Mark-1]

Just read it and - in my personal opinion - the article is a bit misleading. For sure, the symptoms days and weeks later are overblown in parts of the media.

However, in terms of practicalities, the article goes on to quote the Red Cross:

"A life-threatening condition could potentially occur if someone has been partially submerged in water and rescued, but if at some point subsequent to that, a small amount of water will have entered their lungs. "This causes inflammation or swelling and makes it harder for the lungs to function," says Joe Mulligan, head of first aid education at the British Red Cross. ​

​

They can also develop a condition called aspiration pneumonia as a consequence of germs in the water.​

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But it's a myth that drowning deaths can occur days or weeks after the incident with no preceeding symptoms, according to the American Red Cross."​

​

So, the long and short of it is that new symptoms are unlikely to emerge days or weeks later, but there is a REAL RISK that the distress/symptoms following a near drowning may deteriorate into something nasty over the next few hours.

I'm not a doctor and I'd still rather they make that call not me!

It's not misleading. Indeed your quote demonstrates it's spot on!

 

[doug748]

Very useful to get fit, adjust your body mass index down to around 25 and go sea swimming on a regular basis - without a wetsuit.

Panic debilitates. The waters around our coast are generally warm ish for six months of the year.

.

 

[JumbleDuck]

So, the long and short of it is that new symptoms are unlikely to emerge days or weeks later, but there is a REAL RISK that the distress/symptoms following a near drowning may deteriorate into something nasty over the next few hours.

I think the message is that if that happens - and it seems to do so in 1 or 2% of cases, which is low but not zero - you always get lots of warning, over hours. So there really is no need to get checked out on spec, but if any symptoms develop in the hours after immersion help should be sought.

We had quite a good discussion about this after the Cardiff Bay incident where a couple of young, untrained and irresponsible RIB drivers collided while showing off a night and many of the children they were carrying ended up in the water

 

[JumbleDuck]

There are a lot of YouTube articles on the subject of cold water immersion under the heading cold water boot camp.

There was an excellent series produced by a Canadian organisation, which I couldn't find last time I looked. What I remembered from it was that you have only ten minutes or so of purposeful action, an hour or so of consciousness and then a surprisingly long time before you actually die. Conclusion: Use those ten minutes well. And wear a harness.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

There was an excellent series produced by a Canadian organisation, which I couldn't find last time I looked. What I remembered from it was that you have only ten minutes or so of purposeful action, an hour or so of consciousness and then a surprisingly long time before you actually die. Conclusion: Use those ten minutes well. And wear a harness.

The RYA Sea Survival course I attended showed an excellent video where well-known Olympic swimmers and athletes demonstrated how rapidly they lost strength and mental capacity when immersed in cold water. It was, of course, an issue that was emphasized on my work First Aid course before going to Antarctica, I also have personal experience of losing strength rapidly in cold water (offshore East Coast of Scotland) and even when I fell in on a benign day in the marina I was aware of a slow loss of strength. Basically, if the water is below body temperature (it is very rare for it to be that high), you WILL lose heat more or less rapidly; the heat capacity of water is far greater than that of air, and the loss of heat will be faster than your body can compensate for.

 

[capnsensible]

There was an excellent series produced by a Canadian organisation, which I couldn't find last time I looked. What I remembered from it was that you have only ten minutes or so of purposeful action, an hour or so of consciousness and then a surprisingly long time before you actually die. Conclusion: Use those ten minutes well. And wear a harness.

Here you go.

Cold Water Boot Camp

This is the original that came up with 1-10-1. The YouTube link that explains this that I posted earlier ^ is the same thing. Just the first one I found. There is lots to learn in both series for anyone interested, bearing in mind these are totally supervised medical trials.

Most western navies have conducted their own research, but not always in the public domain. For example, the RN research is conducted in their institute in Alverstoke, near Portsmouth. The trials with the two Olympic swimmers, Duncan Goodhew and a lady who's name I forget is, I think, out there on the net. The gruesome stuff from my naval training days....isn't!

 

[capnsensible]

.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Here you go.

Cold Water Boot Camp

Many thanks.

Most western navies have conducted their own research, but not always in the public domain. For example, the RN research is conducted in their institute in Alverstoke, near Portsmouth. The trials with the two Olympic swimmers, Duncan Goodhew and a lady who's name I forget is, I think, out there on the net. The gruesome stuff from my naval training days....isn't!

The Luftwaffe did some very detailed research on the effects of cold water immersion in the 1940s. There are ethical issues about using the results, but I believe it's still the best evidence on how long it actually takes people to die.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Many thanks.



The Luftwaffe did some very detailed research on the effects of cold water immersion in the 1940s. There are ethical issues about using the results, but I believe it's still the best evidence on how long it actually takes people to die.

I think I recall reading somewhere that as well as the obvious ethical dilemma, there are also issues about the experimental design and recording of results; despite their reputation for cold-blooded efficiency, the extermination camp doctors were pretty sloppy scientists who allowed their pre-conceptions to dictate their thinking and procedure.

 

[Pye_End]

There's no better age to teach kids!

Provided the information is presented in a simple, understandable form, a young age is just when nature has programmed us to learn best - especially when it comes to things that will keep us alive

Depends on the age of the child and how developed that child is. Quite often they are in swimming classes before they have much awareness of death or other serious consequences. Some are taught as babies before they can communicate at all! All mine leaned to swim young, and would not have understood cold water shock at that age, but at least their parent's did, so they are now aware. My original point remains though - many, many people are not aware of it at all.

 

[Mark-1]

I think I recall reading somewhere that as well as the obvious ethical dilemma, there are also issues about the experimental design and recording of results; despite their reputation for cold-blooded efficiency, the extermination camp doctors were pretty sloppy scientists who allowed their pre-conceptions to dictate their thinking and procedure.

I've always thought those experiments would be pretty meaningless for all the obvious reasons, but your post prompted me to Google, and they were more hopeless than I imagined. This isn't nit picking, what survives is fundamentally wrong in significant ways, and detail isn't even available:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199005173222006

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I've always thought those experiments would be pretty meaningless for all the obvious reasons, but your post prompted me to Google, and they were more hopeless than I imagined:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199005173222006

Thank you for taking the trouble to check! The ethical dilemma is probably not resolvable as different value systems will lead to different answers, but bad science can and should be disregarded, especially when the results are in many cases shown to be in opposition to better-controlled studies, and which show all the hallmarks of being manipulated to pander to beliefs held by authority figures.

 

[doug748]

I've always thought those experiments would be pretty meaningless for all the obvious reasons, but your post prompted me to Google, and they were more hopeless than I imagined:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199005173222006

That Cold Shock video is a bit dodgy as well, if they have us believe that 10 deg C is:

" a typical temperature off our coasts on a sunny day in June"

I think they meant to say:

"...................a possible temperature off our coasts in June, in unseasonable weather, in a cold year and you fell in in the North of Scotland"


.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

That Cold Shock video is a bit dodgy as well, if they have us believe that 10 deg C is:

" a typical temperature off our coasts on a sunny day in June"

I think they meant to say:

"...................a possible temperature off our coasts in June, in unseasonable weather, in a cold year and you fell in in the North of Scotland"


.

I agree that the SST is well above 10 C for most of the UK in summer. But SST (a measure usually derived from the AVHRR instrument, which measures infrared emissions) is a skin temperature; it literally only applies to the top few micrometres of the sea. The temperature a metre or so below the surface, once away from the surf zone, can be much lower than the SST as the direct effect of solar heating diminishes and wave mixing effects decrease. I'm sure most of us have encountered a situation where the surface water was quite warm, but the water below a certain level is much colder.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I've always thought those experiments would be pretty meaningless for all the obvious reasons, but your post prompted me to Google, and they were more hopeless than I imagined. This isn't nit picking, what survives is fundamentally wrong in significant ways, and detail isn't even available:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199005173222006

Thanks. I am very happy to be corrected ... though I am not sure that knowing the victims died for bad science is much consolation.

 

[Mark-1]

Thanks. I am very happy to be corrected ... though I am not sure that knowing the victims died for bad science is much consolation.

I didn't realize I was correcting anyone, but yeah, makes it even more heartbreaking.

 

[dom]

Thanks. I am very happy to be corrected ... though I am not sure that knowing the victims died for bad science is much consolation.

Probably a stretch to call it science at all:

A vicious War Crime conducted by an evil regime intent on exterminating people where their death was an added bonus.

With the vague hope of stumbling across something which may have helped downed Luftwaffe pilots.