To mention some water safety issues we all need to know?

[Northernlurker]

Having read of some awful tragedies over the weekend with open water I thought I would start a thread with a few points and others can add. Because not everybody has had the same exposure to open water risks so what is common sense to one person is utterly unknown to others.

Open water in the UK is cold. Really cold. Even on sunny days. The deeper you go, the colder. This can take even fit and well people by surprise.

Don't jump in to unknown water ever. We are a rocky country populated by messy people. Water hides rocks, logs, metal and all manner of hazards.

Piers and jetty lead out from the shore to deep water so boats can be accessed. Don't regard them as an extension of the shore. The water will be both deep and cold.

Swim parallel to the shore, not out to sea.

No inflatables in the sea ever.

Tides move faster than you can walk, know what your exit route is.

If you can't swim, don't go out of your depth. Don't try and help people in trouble. You help just as much by fetching help or fetching items people in the water can hold on to.

Make sure your teenagers know these principles.

And remember 'float to live'

@CounsellorTroi

I love pool swimming, it’s one of my favourite ways to exercise, but I learnt to swim as an adult and would not describe myself as a strong swimmer. We go to Scotland a lot and no way would I swim in a loch or waterfall. Even in a pool I won’t go out of my depth. The pool I swim in doesn’t have a deep end - I don’t see the need for leisure pools to have one.

I think it’s important for pools to have a deep end so people can learn to swim out of their depth? I guess some people use the deep end for diving too?

I swim often at my local pool, I was lucky to have a swimming pool in my garden as a child so we barely went swimming in the sea, I taught myself to swim when I was 10 (so a bit later than most), I’m happy to swim out of my depth in a pool but not in the sea.

@somewhereoverthe

I was going to raise the issue of swimming for sn children too, like the post above. Dh and our neurotypical Ds can swim well and Ds has done lifesaving classes. I am an ok swimmer too but our 7 year old has Asd and dyspraxia and although we have taken him to pools since he was a baby and paid for loads of lessons he just can't get it and still hates jumping and going underwater. We aren't giving up on the lessons and wouldn't let him in open water unattended but please don't always assume it's the parents fault when Dcs can't/won't swim.

Exactly, it’s really hard, both my DD’s have ASD and dyspraxia, dd1 has always hated water to the point she hates getting in the bath, I have tried so hard with her and paid for lessons with no success. Dd2 loves water but just can’t coordinate herself to swim but we keep trying, she comes paddleboarding with me and she bodyboards (with a botany aid/jacket).

@ElvisPresleyHadABaby it's Lancashire :)

@Tavannach

there are no currents in Loch Lomond.

Loch Lomond is 36 km long. There are
22 islands (including Inchtavannach)and 27 islets in it. I have no idea how much water flows into the loch from the numerous streams but there are fresh water springs in the loch. The loch lies on the fault line that divides the highlands from the lowlands. There are no tides but there are currents.

It depends on what you mean by a current. If you include rips, then any body of water large enough to have waves can have a current. In terms of swimming safety, I would agree that lakes can have currents. But lakes don't have the same type of currents as oceans - lots of posters on here seem to think that you might encounter one in the middle of a lake, which isn't right.

Strictly speaking, all bodies of water are tidal - it's just that the effects of the moon's gravitational pull are too small to be seen outside of really large bodies of water.

@Sprig1

The floating thing is great but relies on not panicking. I think that raises a wider point about resilience in children (or anyone really). It is an important life skill to learn that things go wrong and you need to be able to come up with coping strategies. Too many children are babied through life and never get in to a difficult situation. When it's a life/death one the leap is too great for them to cope.

On the water safety one specifically it's amazing how many of the reported fatalities couldn't swim. It seems to be a cultural thing and common amongst the Asian population, can anyone tell me if that's the case really re: lower swimming rates? Maybe a targeted campaign is needed. If not to get people swimming at least to keep those who can't away from the water.

Yes there are lower swimming rates among BME communities.

Therecis the Black Swimmers Association who campaign on this. The stats are really high, something like 80-90% of black children can't/don't swim.

thebsa.co.uk/

Public swimming pools are also under threat of closure, as they are very costly facilities for local councils to maintain. This will disproportionately affect less privileged sectors of society, as always. www.newstatesman.com/2021/07/what-happens-when-you-lose-public-swimming-pool

[quote Snookie00]@BashfulClam. I don’t think there are any currents or whirlpools in Loch Lomond - it’s a freshwater Loch with the only outlet controlled by the weir at Balloch. Just lots of deep and very cold water. The problem is that in areas there is little to no gentle graduation - just steep shelves. We live close and constantly drill the kids about cold water shock. It tends to be either teenagers or tourists who get in trouble as it looks very benign due to lack of tides/ currents.[/quote]
@Snookie00 I have wild swam in Loch Lomond, I live nearby. I gave done a charity swim for the beatson. I wear a wetsuit and carry a floatation aid. There are strong undercurrents…or I must have imagined them.

Of course pools should have deep ends! One thing I’ve taught DD (age 7) this year is what to do if someone is panicking in the water and trying to use her to keep themselves afloat I.e. swim down and away from them that way. You can’t do that without a deep end. Or learn to dive. Or learn to swim out of your depth… This level of risk aversion is just bonkers.

I swim in the sea every chance I get. This thread has taught me I really, really haven't given enough thought to the potential dangers! For instance, I had no idea cold water shock could be a gradual thing. I always thought once you were in, you were sorted. Lots to think about.

It's such a typically smug MN response to tell parents to just pay for their kids swimming lessons - as if that money can somehow be conjured up from thin air! Not to mention people's access to swimming pools, timing of lessons etc.

I was lucky that I could afford to take my kids to a pool fairly regularly when they were young and that they picked up swimming easily and without formal lessons. Lots of children don't -my parents couldn't afford lessons for me. I did 4 years of swimming at school, but learned absolutely nothing and by the end of it still couldn't even float - our weekly classes consisted of them leaving me and the 2 other non swimmers in a roped off section of the shallow end to do whatever we wanted while the rest of the class swam widths. I only learnt to swim finally 2 years ago when I did 3 months of weekly swimming sessions with my partner (who taught me).

A super interesting topic.

There have been several questions around quarry water temp so thought I would try and answer.

For background my interest used to be extended range diving and in the autumn/winter seasons we would use inland open water sites to train. These would range from stone quarries almost 100 meters deep to gravel extraction lakes around 5 meters in depth.

Fresh water is colder than the sea due to the lack of salt, it is also less buoyant. From memory the temperatures would max out at 10 to 12 degrees C (vs. say 18/19 degrees in the sea) and drop to around 5 degrees in the winter.

The deeper sites were known for having thermoclines, these are layers of different temperature water, in good visibility you can actually see them as the water shimmers, so they do exist although the ones I have seen would have been deeper than your typical diving off the edge depth, thats not to say that temperature reduction does not occur at lower depths.

I would agree with the previous poster who called out some the nonsense fantasy stories surrounding open water. It would be far more useful to equip people with proper advice and skills rather than scaring them with tales of weeds that will drag you down (a well known tale from a lagoon local to me).

@undermycatsthumb

Of course pools should have deep ends! One thing I’ve taught DD (age 7) this year is what to do if someone is panicking in the water and trying to use her to keep themselves afloat I.e. swim down and away from them that way. You can’t do that without a deep end. Or learn to dive. Or learn to swim out of your depth… This level of risk aversion is just bonkers.

No one should be learning to dive in a leisure pool. There are specialist pools for that. And as an adult if you avoid open/deep water there is no need to learn to swim in it.

I asked @MNHQ if there was any way this topic could be pinned. It's very interesting & important.

Can I just add a couple of points that are slightly adjacent to the main thrust here? There have been several deaths on sandy beaches over the years when parents allow children to dig deep holes in the sand. The sides of the holes then collapse and they cannot get the children out of the wet sand (weighs a ton) and the children suffocate and die. Similarly, never allow your children to tunnel into the side of a sand dune. My parents live near a beach where such a tunnel collapsed on the kid who dug it. Even though his feet were sticking out and the parents and several others were frantically digging, they couldn't get him out in time. Hideous.

Ps: a pp said upthread that the RNLI was an emergency service (in response to another pp who said it was a charity). The first post was correct - the RNLI is a charity, not an emergency service in the way, say, ambulances are. 98% of it’s funds come from charity and only 2% from the government. Bloody heroes, the lot of them.

No one should be learning to dive in a leisure pool. There are specialist pools for that. And as an adult if you avoid open/deep water there is no need to learn to swim in it

Fair point on the diving, though lots of the kids’ council swimming lessons where I live are held at leisure pools… it seems unfair that kids whose parents can’t afford the private lessons don’t get to learn to dive.

As for adults not going out of their depth in open water, leaving aside the fact that this would minimise a huge amount of swimmers’ joy and pleasure, one of the issues that has come up over and over on this thread is people (both adults and children) getting out of their depth unexpectedly eg where beaches shelve steeply. It is incredibly important that people don’t panic in that situation- imagine never having gone out of your depth in a very benign swimming pool and then suddenly finding yourself in that position in a river/beach/lake. It would be terrifying!

@Snookie00 I have wild swam in Loch Lomond, I live nearby. I gave done a charity swim for the beatson. I wear a wetsuit and carry a floatation aid. There are strong undercurrents…or I must have imagined them

Those are thermohalines caused by fluctuations in temperature. They are one of the components of ocean currents, but are not currents themselves.

When people mention an undercurrent or undertow that current is moving sideways not pulling you under. Yes these occur in lakes especially at narrow points but they aren't dangerous and 'should' be obvious, but then a major problem is inexperienced swimmers don't realise what it is they are feeling

Those are thermohalines caused by fluctuations in temperature. They are one of the components of ocean currents, but are not currents themselves.

And how many regular people are going to be aware of the word / meaning of 'thermohalines'? Easier to refer to them as 'currents' even if it is the wrong term. At least people will get the gist of what you mean and understand there's a safety risk.

And how many regular people are going to be aware of the word / meaning of 'thermohalines'? Easier to refer to them as 'currents' even if it is the wrong term. At least people will get the gist of what you mean and understand there's a safety risk

The whole point is that they aren't currents, and people don't need to be afraid of being caught by a current in the middle of a lake. They do, however, need to be careful around the shores, where there can be rips and undertows.

As PPs have said, there are a lot of myths on this thread, which are unhelpful. It doesn't make anyone safer to make them scared of risks that don't actually exist.

Desperate for the families involved. But I saw one of the men interviewed on the news last night - none of the people who had drowned could swim. He was calling for more signs to be put up warning people Perhaps the sign could read "If you can't swim, it's probably dangerous to be in the water"?

Swimming in schools is not compulsory in Scotland, not part of the curriculum. So unless you have parents who are prepared to take you, or put you in lessons, you won't have the opportunity to learn. And for many parents, and some whole communities, it's just not a priority.

It does seem skewed that there is SO MUCH coverage of children and covid, when the chance of an otherwise healthy child dying from Covid is practically zero. But no coverage of the dangers of open water. We have a quarry locally and the local idiot teens have been up there in the hot weather jumping in. Total stupidity and dangerous.

I live abroad in a country with no coast and very few rivers or lakes. But swimming is part of the national curriculum from 4-18. My kids had at least 6 months of weekly lessons for 14 years through school. You can’t graduate high school without being able to swim a certain distance (adaptations are made of course on medical or disability grounds).

Same in my country, you can't move up to middle school without a swimming certificate.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

And how many regular people are going to be aware of the word / meaning of 'thermohalines'? Easier to refer to them as 'currents' even if it is the wrong term. At least people will get the gist of what you mean and understand there's a safety risk

The whole point is that they aren't currents, and people don't need to be afraid of being caught by a current in the middle of a lake. They do, however, need to be careful around the shores, where there can be rips and undertows.

As PPs have said, there are a lot of myths on this thread, which are unhelpful. It doesn't make anyone safer to make them scared of risks that don't actually exist.

Agree @MissLucyEyelesbarrow. Scary incorrect tales should not be needed and the important messages (cold water kills, don’t go in open water if you can’t swim, use appropriate equipment) are communicated. Parents should be drilling into their kids the importance of respecting the sea/ open water but it also brings huge amounts of pleasure to many if done safely. This summer with its travel restrictions and the heatwave has caused a huge amount of people who aren’t used to British water/sea to access it which is brilliant but kids/ teenagers and tourists from inner cities will not be aware of the dangers.

Desperate for the families involved. But I saw one of the men interviewed on the news last night - none of the people who had drowned could swim. He was calling for more signs to be put up warning people hmm Perhaps the sign could read "If you can't swim, it's probably dangerous to be in the water"?

Everyone has to take personal responsibility but a lot of people will see a nice calm looking body of water and assume it is fine and safe because they don't have the knowledge of or have never been educated about water safety and the signs of danger to look out for in different bodies of water (pool vs lake vs canal vs sea etc)

NC'ed as it is outing but a member of my extended family - my aunt's sisters husband - drowned last week off the Filey Coast. He and the family were all at a holiday park and had gone to a local beach that was advertised in the holiday park, was directly accessible from the site, had plenty of signage about wildlife and covid etc but nothing about the dangers of rip currents which are apparently common in that area.

His (strong swimmers) teenage children were in the sea when they got caught in a rip current when they were in less than waist high water. One managed to get out and get back to the beach to alert help, one immediately went to floating until the coastguard arrived but the other got into difficulty as she was pulled out of her depth, panicked, went under and got disoriented. He saw this from the beach and despite people trying to stop him he couldn't watch his kids in danger and so he went in after them. He got caught in the rip and because he was fighting it to get to his DD he went under and died. His daughter is still in hospital but if it wasn't for some paddleboarders seeing her floating barely conscious and literally dragging her out of the water she might have drowned too before the coastguard arrived.

Despite the fact this beach was packed with holiday makers there was no lifeguard patrols, no warnings about the rip currents and no emergency life rings. The family are strong swimmers but rip currents are not something they knew much about. Even just a single sign warning of rip currents being common at that beach would have alerted them to signs to look out for to give them information to help themselves. From the comments on SM from the news articles there are many people who have had similar incidents of being caught in rip currents on that beach and despite contacting the local council, coastguard and the holiday park nothing has been done to improve the warnings provided to beach users.