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'

@Grenlei happened to me in a hotel in Scotland as a child!

@roguetomato did you lose your dad? :(

[quote Nicknacky]@CorianderBee That’s horrific, where?[/quote]
Oh, just looked again and I got the year wrong. It was today's date but a few years ago actually!

We do water training for our job and our trainer - a rescue diver - basically said his role is 99% recovery rather than rescue. Unless professional help is right there, you’re screwed. Do not swim in open water, do not try to rescue anything from water at all, basically, stick to paddling!
The most common issue is people swimming out into a body of water, then finding how cold it is, your body struggles in the cold, you flounder and drown. He strongly emphasised that you should never try to go in and rescue someone, because you will experience the exact same and now there’s two tragedies. Stay on dry land and throw something to the person in difficulty. We have rescue divers on hand, and I still have a healthy fear of ending up in open water!

I miss the horror safety films we used to have before every summer holiday.

You LEAVE that frisbee on the pylon

You NEVER run a level crossing

Etc

It's 45 years later and I still think "Charlie says" when I see an electricity substation

I really wish people (and by that I mean authorities as well as just normal people) would not spread lies.

These lies about 'all water outside in the UK is barely above freezing' which I hear repeated so often I've lost count - it isn't true, the river temps near me this last week have been over 19C, thats a LONG way off freezing and it's higher in still water with full sun on it, much much higher.

What is true is that water will sit in layers of different temperatures and if you dive into water even if you have acclimated to the surface layers, in some places you can dive into some pretty cold water. Still no where near freezing of course.

Then theres the bullshit discussed about mysterious currents and undertows and whirlpools in lakes and quarries that fill from rainwater or springs and have no such things.

Might as well discuss monsters and man eating prehistoric creatures too...

What these lies do is switch peoples brains OFF to the truth. Tell people lies that they can easily determine for themselves are lies, and they are not going to believe anything else you say either.

If we educated people on some simple stuff to stay safe in the water, things like checking entry and exit points, swim with a friend, acclimate slowly, swim within your physical capabilities, build up swim fitness gradually, don't dive into water you don't know VERY well... we'd save a lot more lives than the posters telling lies to frighten people into not swimming.

We have excellent models for safer outdoor swimming from much of europe and also canada - why on earth can't we follow it.

I wonder if the recent fad encouraging people to go wild swimming could be to blame for people thinking open water isn't so dangerous?

If people do their research and know what they're doing then maybe 'wild swimming' is alright, I don't know. But now we've got entire families diving into lakes and drowning. It can't be all that safe to condense the activity into pithy Pinterest quotes.

I wonder if that YouTube family are still continuing with their “legal action” which will be extremely inappropriate given the recent deaths.

@Poshjock

Drowning is a form of suffocation. Injury of death is caused by lack of oxygen. The most important thing that you can do for someone pulled unconscious from water is BREATHING. Mouth to mouth is more important than chest compressions. CPR is different for immersion/submersion incidents and it’s not often taught on first aid courses!

This is mis-information and potentially dangerous. I agree that drowing is suffocation, but you breathing into a non breathing casualty alone will do nothing, their heart will not be beating. Lack of blood flow to the brain does serious brain damage in minutes and gets worse all the time the blood is not circulating.

If you feel you can or are happy to, 2
Rescue breaths should be given then commence CPR.
The likely hood Is the chest compression will expell most of the water from the lungs anyway.

Another thing to add, don't try putting an AED (defib) kit onto a wet person, you will be in for a bad time!

@LuxOlenteni I said similar unthread. I have loads of people on my social media doing it.

@CorianderBee While it’s a relief that wasn’t today, it was still a tragedy on that day, and shows the dangers are not decreasing. Where was it if you don’t mind me asking?

Great thread OP. It's heartbreaking that so many people have lost their lives

How cold is too cold? Our local beach (north Kent, more Thames Estuary) is apparently 16 degrees this time of year which feels cold but totally fine once you’re in it.

My toddler would throw himself in head first if he could and cold water shock terrifies me.

We swim in open water - it's ok but you need to acclimatise getting in and never swim alone

Don't swim at Camber

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

Hear hear. My neighbour is is lifeboat volunteer, he's been out 4 times this week to people who didn't read the tide timetable!

@MrsCremuel

How cold is too cold? Our local beach (north Kent, more Thames Estuary) is apparently 16 degrees this time of year which feels cold but totally fine once you’re in it.

It's not necessarily too cold that's the issue, people swim in the sea year round. It's cold water shock that is the problem, don't sit in the sun get hot then jump in over your depth, that's when problems happen, your muscles tense and you will find it hard to breath. Its not the actual temperature, but more the sudden change of temperature.

We live near a canal and my daughter has saved two lives by throwing a lifebouy/life belt to the person in the water. If you are walking by a canal or river and notice that the lifebelt is missing or damaged please report it.

What do you do if you can’t float? My legs sink. They always have and no one has been able to show me a way where they don’t sink.

@Diverseopinions

Tealpink

Was it the quicksand that they got stuck in?

I don't know where you are, but I thought Camber Sands was dodgy when I went there, and weird currents sweeping across the sand cut off different bits of it into islands. I can't understand for the life of me why it is viewed as a family-friendly beach.

Parts of The Gower Peninsula, where I used to go, have strong currents, but the beaches are rocky and look a bit scary some of them, so you are warned somewhat.

There are some very nasty rip tides at Camber. Every year people (mainly day trippers) drown because they don't heed basic water safety advice

Don’t look away from your children in the water. Ever. Former lifeguard here and I can tell you if they go under in open water, it is EXTREMELY hard to see them. Searches will be recovery, not rescue. A friend had a “water watcher” lanyard the adults passed around at a recent gathering, great idea to make sure everyone doesn’t think “someone else” is watching the water.

For under 4s, drowning is #1 cause of injury related death, for under 18s, it’s #2 (behind vehicle related deaths).

Talking about horror safety films, this one, “Lonely Water”, is not for the faint hearted:

@JustLyra

I also think people need to remember that they've - kids especially - have done very, very little swimming for the last 18 months.

Many people have done much less exercise and are considerably more unfit than they were two summers ago and they really need to take that into account.

This is a good point. When DD started back with school swimming lessons this Summer term she found it much harder than she had before.

I almost drowned off the coast of Suffolk aged 15. I could swim, and was with a couple of other teens who were also good swimmers. I remember being able to touch the ground one minute, the next it was gone. I was moving out to sea (fairly slowly but steadily) in a rip current. Panic hit as I tried to swim back to shore but against the current. I remember not even being able to scream or shout, fear and exhaustion just took my voice. My older brother swam to help me and (I'm still ashamed too think of this) I just grabbed him and pulled him under in my panicked attempt to stay above the water. Wave after wave seemed to hit us. Luckily my dad had decided to walk back along the beach from popping to the shops and saw us - he ran into the sea fully clothed to pull us both out.

If he hadn't done that, I have no doubt we would both be dead.

1. Swim sideways if you get caught in a current
2. If you swim to help someone approach them from behind, they will be in a state of panic and grab anything to stay afloat
3. Watch for currents. You can sometimes see them (either waves breaking at slightly different times, or a river effect on the surface heading out to sea).

A family friend died a few years ago in Loch Lomond. One of the children in their group kicked a ball into the loch and he went in to get it and disappeared. All these drownings are just heart breaking.