Heatwave water deaths - campaign required

I swim all year round.

I often swim in a quarry that is used by a watersports centre. Swimming there is organised but as swimmers we have a lot of independence because we seem when it is unmanned, before and after their watersports activities. We do it safely, have rules about water temperatures and so on.

This week I took my 14 year old too.

Kids do need to learn about how to open water swim because they will do it regardless. They need to know how to float to live. They need to know to enter water slowly and acclimatise before getting out and jumping in. You can't ban open water swimming, all you do is stop people knowing how to reduce risk.

Exactly. We get heatwaves, always have done. The issue is the number, duration and intensity is all increasing through climate change. Anyone south and east of Birmingham, you have my sympathy. Some of the long range temperature statistics for places like London are frightening (let alone the follow on of dying greenspaces, wildfires increasing, water drying up etc....)

This. This is the significant issue about getting through.

Exactly this - take the campaign to where the audience is: gaming, you tube shorts, TikTok.

Since the government got rid of the COI in the noughties, official communication has been so ineffective.

I assumed there had been in schools, my DC have all been taught about it in assemblies anyway. Some teens near us jumped into a canal and died a few years ago so I believe one of the parents came in to do a talk.

I agree that a hard hitting short video on TikTok, etc. would be the best way of reaching teenagers although there will always be some that ignore it all.

I have no idea who is the biggest 'celebrity' teenage lads look up to these days (?) but if they could be the ones to tell them how stupid it is to jump into open water then this might make a few of them think twice.

Cold water shock is very different from person to person.

i have been doing open water swimming throughout the year for the last three years.

how shocked your body is by cold water is a very very individual thing.

in addition even at relatively high water temperatures (20 or so) if you are in for a long time (hours or longer) you will get tired.

kids and teens tend to be more vulnerable to cold water because bluntly they don’t have much fat and get cold quickly but also if you get in slowly (like at a beach) and let your body adjust slowly you are less likely to feel it.

i swim in the winter and because my body is now mostly used to it I can manage quite a long swim at 5 degrees or so but I certainly wouldn’t be recommending that someone who isn’t used to it swim at that temperature

My partner grew up in a coastal town in the 90s and 2000s. Everyone managed to swim and enjoy the sea without getting into any trouble. People today seem to have an "I'll do what I like, the rules don't appy to me" attitude.

I do think some ego comes into play, here. Rules don't apply to them, etc. There are plenty of warnings, and parents should also provide education.

In the 80s we had the terrifying public information films (adverts) and they shocked (most of) us into behaving, but our parents had already done the groundwork with us.

There are campaigns. Every summer middle aged people pontificate online about cold water shock and how terrifying the water is like they’ve just learned about it themselves. It’s a really strange phenomenon

This is a good idea, and a related comment 'Our kids can swim 25m in winter coat and boots by the time they're 7. Almost everyone does swim lessons because it's viewed as terrible parenting not to, and their kids aren't allowed on school trips etc if they haven't passed their swim exam' can you imagine the outcry in the UK if they tried to do that here?

They'd be endless AIBUs 'AIBU to not make my DC do outdoor swimming lessons' with endless reasons why they can't do it.

But I think they should have lessons where they swim outside and also learn of the dangers. Plus there should be safety videos on Tiktok that are compulsory - you can't play other videos until you've let it run. Like unskippable adverts. Perhaps see if they can rope in some celebrities who teens admire - footballers, musicians etc.

There should be more safe swimming areas open to the public. Swimming pools are so expensive and difficult to navigate booking into.

I really don’t think this is something you can blame Covid for. This has happened for years and years. As someone else pointed out deaths are actually lower than they used to be. I imagine most of these teenage boys can swim ok. But the problem is they just don’t listen to warnings. Teenagers are well known for thinking they are immortal. It’s nothing new. I’m pretty sure I was the same but I was definitely less risk averse overall but I still did silly things. I remember riding as a passenger on a moped thing with a boy I’d just met when I was 18 in Ayia Napa. No helmet etc. Just hanging on to this random guy on the back of a bike. He was going really fast and I do remember being a bit scared but it didn’t stop me at the time! I guess I wanted to be seen as cool. Stupid yes but it really is just what some teens do! I also remember getting in to random cabs after clubs. I don’t think most were actually cabs. Just random men with cars. My mum always told me never to do that. Did I listen? Not at all.

You should see the behaviour of some teens near me. They deliberately ride bikes (younger ones on pedal bikes older ones on motorbikes) on the wrong side of the road towards traffic and do wheelies at them. So cars are having to stop dead in the street while the boys ride wheelies around them laughing. Occasionally they’ll even bang on the car and shout obscenities if they think the car didn’t stop quick enough! Only last week one boy (looked about 13 to me on a normal bike) was yelling at a woman in her car “Oi bitch you trying to kill me or what?? Fucking bitch. We’ve filmed you trying to kill me bitch!”. They wouldn’t move out the road for ages to let the cars past. Do you think these boys would listen to an advert telling them not to dive into cold water?

I don’t think adverts would do much. I guess if it warned some it’s better than none. But most people don’t watch adverts. They’ll skip them or turn the volume down etc or just ignore them. Then as others have said parents would complain that their kids were being shown things too graphic etc. Unfortunately I honestly don’t think you’ll ever be able to stop it happening.

I agree with OP. I remember all the safety campaigns when I was young, including one about not swimming in lake and reservoirs. There are almost none now.
The only one that springs to mind is one by a charity about adopting the starfish position in case of trouble in water, but that is not the same as educating young people not to enter the reservoir/open water in the first place.
I think as adults having been educated by such campaigns in our childhood and the knowledge being second nature, we forget that this information is not acquired at birth by children and needs to be drummed into them, in the same way as it was into us.
Sadly, the previous governments left all this kind of campaigning to charities or schools rather than a public-funded national-level initiative, so a lot of safety campaigning fell by the wayside or was too expensive for charities to, for example, run adverts on TV, as the government used to do in our own childhoods (most memorably the green cross code).

My 11yo DS had the RNLI come into school a couple of years back to talk about water safety and float to live/ the starfish. He was interested in it so we looked up more about rips etc.

I’ve been showing him the news articles about water related deaths since and we’ve been talking about them. Some might not agree with it but I don’t believe in shielding children, especially when it can provide a valuable lesson. So he’s fully aware of the dangers. 11 deaths in a short space of time recently!

I don’t believe not being able to swim is the issue; I think the confident swimmers are the ones who tend to go in thinking they’ll be fine because they can swim. There are various other factors at play. Cold water shock is definitely a thing, especially in warm weather, unseen hazards under the water etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjepg7vkzwwo

On the other hand if they know they can't swim they won't get in the water in the first place.

I'm not suggesting learning to swim is a bad thing but false confidence definitely is and it's the cold water that kills not the swimming ability.

Only one other child in my daughter’s year could already swim at her school swimming lessons.

When her school entered into the local swimming garla which is supposed to be for year six students her and her class mate where picked. From year 4.

That’s how bad swimming seems to be locally.

A pp said what about parenting but some teens don't tend to take any notice so yes i agree we need some kind of public warnings on tv like the old 'charlie said' campaign which we all remember.

We see lots of signs warning about risks of smoking and obesity let's see ads on the telly pointing out what happens with cold water shock.

If it prevents one tragic death it'd be worth it. My heart goes out to the families of those sadly drowned in recent days.

IMO boys must be programmed to take daft risks.

We were once in the car, waiting at a level crossing, gates just closing, when 2 teen boys - on bikes! - dodged through the closing gates, making it by the skin of their teeth. 😱

Dh said, ‘I’m glad we’ve only got girls - boys are so bloody stupid!’
He is one of 4 boys and did plenty of stupid things himself, so he should know!

Do we have infrequent heat waves? I feel like we have a ‘heat wave’ every year for about 4 months of the year, at least in the south east that is

I know this is a bit off topic, but bear with me. My PP, I mentioned the "Charlie says" public information cartoons. I do think they would still work.

It's taken me a bit to find, but this is an Amnesty International one about informed consent, a clever modern one that gets the message across.

I am not sure a campaign aimed at only this is the answer. We have to remember that teenagers are 'hard wired' to take risks, research shows it is literally in their biology. Risks are varied and can be positive - a sport, playing an instrument in front of folk, a new friend group, behaving or dressing differently etc. But it can also be negative - often teens reach for drink, drugs, sex... The issues here fore me are so many children grow up without learning the skills and emotions of risk management, and so many children grow up without the appropriate feedback loop around risk taking that enables them to apply it elsewhere. We have to enable children, from a very young age, to experience and manage risks and fear. We cannot wait for that to happen when it is teenage years, when the risks they face increase in consequence exponentially - things like being dared to jump off things, being handed a drink at a party, being offered a lift in a car with a new driver...

But please not another very specific campaign or warning that deep water is always dangerous. I have spent my whole life swimming, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, gorge walking and more, both for my own fun and teaching children and young people that outdoor sports are fabulous, that nature is wonderful and healing place, and that adventure and risk is good for us all.

I also think that if there is any campaign it is about more swimming lessons for all children and more access to the natural world.

another good point "Oh it won't happen to me-itis"

Well this too. I can't swim. Yes I have tried to learn MANY TIMES, has lessons at school and so on, can't do it. I used to go to the beach as a child, take boating holidays on rivers as an adult and so on. Even as a teenager I knew to be careful because I can't swim.

I was brought up in the Lake District and don’t recall a single one of my classmates dying by drowning in lakes. These are city kids that get no proper instruction as to outdoor activities. The issue is about outdoor activities and education as to the dangers. Plus their parents are probably equally as ignorant to the dangers.

I remember two train drivers coming to talk to us about rail safety at secondary school. They did not hold back on any gruesome details. I have a very healthy level of fear around railways now.

Maybe something like this but for water safety. Get the fire brigade/coast guard/RNLI in.