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 sportfisher and the beach. \u201cI think he thinks you\u2019re drowning,\u201d 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. \u201cWe\u2019re fine, what is he doing?\u201d she asked, a little annoyed. \u201cWe\u2019re fine!\u201d the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. \u201dMove!\u201d he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, \u201cDaddy!\u201d<\/p>\n
How did this captain know \u2013 from fifty feet away \u2013 what the father couldn\u2019t 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\u2019s all of us then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, \u201cDaddy,\u201d she hadn\u2019t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn\u2019t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning television prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.<\/p>\n
The Instinctive Drowning Response \u2013 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. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK \u2013 don\u2019t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don\u2019t look like they\u2019re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, \u201cAre you alright?\u201d If they can answer at all \u2013 they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents \u2013 children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
![\"1940s](\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/to-rescue-the-drowing-american-red-cross-1940s.jpg\")
<\/a>I quoted only the opening paragraphs as well as the closing one.<\/p>\n