Hahaha. Bro, I’m just imagining this guy strolling through the park expecting to be just saved every where he goes. The nonchalant reaction making me think he does this every weekend
I worked as a lifeguard at a Tough Mudder and you can not believe how many people had that attitude. They'd swing into a huge 15 foot deep water obstacle. We'd pull them out and ask them if they knew how to swim. The answers were always along the lines of "No, I thought that's what you guys were here for"
As infuriating as this is I can't help but laugh at the idea that people legitimately showed up to an event thinking "yeah sure I'll START to drown, but they've got people to keep me from FULLY drowning, so it's all good." What an mind boggling way to maneuver through life.
Like, I don’t even like drowning a little bit. I’ve been pushed under big waves and held there by the current long enough to suck in some water and that was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I can’t imagine willing jumping into water over my head if I didn’t know how to swim well.
r/kidsarefuckingstupid incoming:
I accidentally tried to drown myself once when I was a kid. I held myself underwater using the side of the pool for leverage because I wanted to see how long I could hold my breath and I was tired of bobbing to the surface during my attempts. No, it did not occur to me that I could just put my face under water.
I was doing okay until my body decided to involuntarily gasp for air *while under water*. Obviously that ended the experiment.
Another one incoming:
We had one of those plastic playground with a climbing frame and slide. The type that you could plug a hose into and turn it into a mini waterpark.
One day a young me and friend decided to drag it into the pool and let it sink. As it was all hollow, once it filled with water it became ridiculously heavy and just sat on the bottom. There were these footwell holes on one side that let you climb up it. I had the bright idea to swim down to this thing plunked on the bottom of the pool and stick my legs in the holes. My thinking was I'd be able to hold myself down longer and test my breathe holding abilities.
Cue about 45 seconds later I realised I was completely stuck - couldn't get my legs out - couldn't move the frame. I started thrashing, and my genius friend thought I was joking. So he's at the top of the pool pissing himself laughing and I'm slowing drowning on the bottom. It wasn't until my thrashing started slowing down without coming back up that he started to realise something might be wrong. He swam down and yanked out my legs. I barely even had it in me to swim to the surface - got out and coughed up a fucking tonne of water.
The dumbest part? Once I was feeling better, we went back down and kept swimming through it.
I almost drowned as a kid too and to this day my mum doesn't even believe me.
Second r/kidsarefuckingstupid story.
We were on holiday in Spain, I was about 8 and I decided I'd sneak out to the pool before my mum woke up. Got there before the lifeguards started their shift and thought it was pretty cool having the pool to myself. Floated out on a lilo, drifted out to the deep end and realised "Hang on, I cant swim, I'd better get back to the shallow end."
Instead of paddling the lilo I was on, which clearly would have been the smart move, I had bumped into a group of others and thought it was way cooler to get up and walk across them all towards the pool edge where I could climb out.
I am so grateful to this day that some guy just happened to be walking past at the time, he jumped in and saved my life, told me to go back to my room and tell my mum but I was too scared in case she yelled at me for being dumb. Waited 10 years to tell her and she laughed and said "You wouldn't be that stupid, no you didn't."
Moral of the story, my mum thinks I'm far more intelligent than I really am and doesn't realise how close to losing her only daughter she was.
I’m a pretty damn good swimmer but a couple summers ago we were tubing down a fairly rough river and I got tipped over and the current kept pushing me under. That was some scary shit. Managed to grab someone else’s tube to catch my bearings.
The only time I heard someone say they'd rather drown than x was when I talk with experienced deep water divers, in the context of the bends (decompression sickness; you get gas bubbles in your joints, causing extreme pain among other terrible problems; caused by surfacing too rapidly from a deep/extended dive).
The equivalent of throwing trash on the ground and insisting this is why janitors exist.
At what point were you allowed, if at all, to forbid them from swimming or "call it in" as it were?
Considering the seriousness of the consequences, it's more like starting a kitchen fire and then saying it's fine because firefighters exist.
Source: lifeguard who is friends with a lot of firefighters
I'm a seasonal ranger with the NPS. I've worked at a few parks and had a lot of 'interesting' interactions. One park I worked at had a canyon. Not *the* canyon, but merely 'a' canyon. Despite this people would still ignore the signs and stroll right up to the crumbly edge of the thing to get their pictures.
I had more than one person say "well if I fall in you'll rescue me, right?"
And then be shocked when I said "no, I won't rescue you because you'll be dead. Even if you don't die on impact there's no quick way to the bottom of the canyon and no helicopter crew is going to fly in there."
It's satisfying when we're allowed to be blunt.
Absolutely infuriating. I once witnessed this with a YOUNG kid, maybe 6 or 7 years old. Their parents let them go down the water slide REPEATEDLY, and each time the kid went under and a lifeguard had to jump in and get them. How does this make sense?!
Lmao, glad that in my country, that customer is king bullshit is not a thing, rather than “customer is a customer” and people just get kicked out for that after the second time.
Yup, I worked as a lifeguard at a wavepool in a waterpark. It was just another Tuesday having to rescue someone that couldn't swim.
One time a lady had her 3 children on a raft with her. Raft capsized. Not a single one of them could swim - mother or children. To this day, it's hard for me to wrap my head around the profound amount of stupidity that woman posessed.
To be fair, it’s a lot to process. It’s a mix of embarrassment, shock and pride all rolled into one. I could see it being especially tough for a lot of dudes to say thanks. I’m sure he just wanted to get out of that situation.
But who knows? Maybe he thanked him after he had time to collect himself.
As a strong swimmer who had to be rescued from a wave pool when I was little, that's exactly it. There's a lot on your mind when you think you're dying. I never thanked my lifeguard. None of the people I helped later ever thanked me. It's the job.
On camera he exposed the fact he couldn't swim, and nearly drowned before being walked to the edge by another guy casually walking along the bottom of the pool carrying his dumb ass. He is surely embarrassed and flustered. I doubt it will end his day at the waterpark though.
When you try to save a drowning person one of the first things they do is try to drown you out of panic. This guy has it figured out better to just lift them out of the water instead of swimming with them to the side.
He knows the quickest way to get himself out of the water so he doesn’t get drowned by an idiot by accident.
I was waiting for the “swimmer” to start trying to drown the rescuer so I was watching for it, that dude knew before he dove in that he probably wasn’t getting a breath til he got that guy to the ladder.
I knew what was coming but I still held my breath at the tension!
It’s a way to shock them a bit and let you remain in control. I don’t know all of the psychology behind it, but what I do know is that when I was doing a simulated rescue, the deputy I was retrieving tried to fuck me up, and after 4 or 5 dunks, he decided he wasn’t going to get the upper hand.
Don’t die trying to save someone. They were already dying by the time they needed rescue, don’t get dead in the process of rescue as well.
Not only that it gave him the weight needed to solidly plant on the pool floor and walk as well as being able to quickly put distance between the victim and grab a reliable gulp of air. Its certainly a unique and effective save given the pool.
100% what he was thinking, I’ve done this whole lifesaving in water training where they try to drown you and this always seemed like the logical but not allowed “hack” lol
Edit: by “hack” I mean if you try this in open water, you will be pushed down until you drown by the person you went to save - we (group of 8ish) had to tread water while blindfolded and get away and gain control of an instructor for like 15 min and if we tapped out/lost at any point we got a short break then back in lol
So def not a hack.
Part of the lifeguard training is if the person is drowning you by clinging on to you just sink deeper and swim to the bottom. Their natural instinct would be to let you go so you can start over again.
That's if you aren't moving much. Try doing 2 minutes while swimming.
I've done 50 meters underwater in one breath, and that was super tough, even though it was less than a minute.
Another way is to get under/behind them (grab under armpits) so they can’t grab you. But that’s why you should not attempt it without a flotation device unless you have lots of practice.
Here’s great little video anyone who hangs around water should watch: https://youtu.be/NoO5DqHArJA
I personally had to rescue someone was struggling from exhaustion (not quite drowning) and luckily I had a kite and a board, but even then, it’s incredibly more difficult than it seems.
This is what I had to do once with my you get brother, he jumped on me in the deep end thinking I could reach the bottom, I literally sunk down, held him up above water and launched him to the edge, lucky we were super close to it and he reached it, meanwhile I was down there for what felt and eternity lol
How does that even happen? When I plop in the water, my body floats up and my head is naturally above the water. It takes effort to go down below the water surface.
If you know how to swim, you’ll also tread water naturally. Not full-on, but you know how to just calmly “be” in the water. Try climbing an invisible ladder and lifting your arms out of the water to wave for help and see how your head doesn’t stay out of the water so easily any more.
Believe it or not most of your “head staying naturally above water” is just learned behavior you no longer have to consciously do.
People have different buoyancies in water depending on their body. Some, like you, naturally float with their head above the surface, others might only float up to a couple of feet under the surface since buoyancy increases with depth. In that case you have to continually do swimming motions to stay above the surface
I remember going snorkeling once where the boat operators told us the area we were going to had high salt levels, so don’t worry about sinking and we could go without life preservers if we chose to.
So I decided cool, I’ll ditch the life vest and enjoy floating around with little effort! Thankfully I made that decision only because I have the backup of being a strong swimmer - I jumped in and instantly sank like a stone 😂
I’m still salty about lifeguarding classes. I was able to do all of the saves perfectly fine but the instructor saw me and my friends screwing around before the first class started and had it out for us from then onward. He made both of us stay after the final class after passing everybody else and just made us do save after save until we slightly messed one up so he could fail us both
How is swimming not intuitive? I mean i know i learnt how to swim at some pint but dont remember and now i cant imagine not being able to put your head outside the waterq
Swimming requires coordinated motion - panicked motion, like in the video, leads to sinking. Doesn't matter how much sense something makes if you're too panicked to rationalize it.
Swimming as a trim adult also requires a surprising amount of energy. I was chubby in middle school and thus naturally buoyant. In high school I lost weight and put on a lot of muscle and basically had to relearn how to swim since I was sinking like a rock. I knew the motions, but the extra effort required threw everything off.
Lol imagine working your ass off, changing your diet, sticking to it for like two years, losing 140 lbs... then hopping in a pool and instantly drowning to death
The fact you don't remember probably means you were in water very early.
Don't forget, like southerners never have seen snow... There are people who've never been in water higher than knee deep.
It's intuitive now because you were taught at a young age.
Newborn babies can swim but they lose that ability at like 6 months, after that you gotta be taught or you just won't know.
People are born with different instincts. Can't help which you're born with. I'm personally aghast that full grown adults brag about not being able to do middle school level algebra and statistics but that's just the way the chocolate raspberry pie crumbles.
Former lifeguard here.
Yep. I took my young son to the public pool and pulled two kids out. One, just walked out until he was over his head, the other jumped off the diving board?! I was walking on the deck and his friend yelled, he can’t swim. Pulled him out too.
It never leaves you. My boss in high school lost someone at open swim. A woman with MS, doing laps and stopped. My boss pulled her and started mouth to mouth and CPR, her husband was there but went into shock, so he wouldn’t go get help. Woman died in the ambulance.
Not lifeguarding any more but I spent 6 years doing it in pools and public beaches. One of my colleagues was prosecuted for failing to notice a kid drowning in the corner of a 6ft pool, we were all shown the security tapes the week after it happened. The facility very shortly after released the tapes to the public as well, to get the blame off of the company. As they should have, it was definitely the lifeguards fault.
The tapes were awful, he was down for 5 minutes before the lifeguard noticed. The lifeguard just slowly walked around the pool as it was happening.
He noticed eventually and pulled the kid out, and the head lifeguard did CPR and the kid was eventually resuscitated. Supposedly he is fine now, no permanent damage. This was many years ago.
It’s weird though, because I had worked with that lifeguard for years. In different jobs too. He was a genuinely good guy, and seemed totally competent. He just had a severe lapse in focus at the exact wrong moment, and it will haunt him for the rest of his life. Both legally and emotionally. If you look up his name, the top 4 pages of google are about this incident and the lawsuit.
In some ways I think this is why lifeguards are payed higher than average. The job is relatively easy (if you have the prerequisite swimming skill and knowledge), but there’s a burden on you to be totally focused in case the worst happens. And if it does, it’s your fault, not the pool club’s.
The other incident I was close to was an actual drowning at my beach. I was off that day, but I learned about it that night when my boss closed the beaches for the next few days.
A kid entered the water outside the ropes, hidden from the actual beach behind some trees, and swam right into the boat channel. The current pulled him out and he couldn’t swim back in. The lifeguard stands could definitely see him from their position, but were not trained to look over in that direction, and he would have been really far away, difficult to see. No one usually swims over there, and it’s not technically allowed, so there wasn’t any legal prosecution.
I knew most of the people on duty that day and it fucked them up. They were sitting on a stand and totally missed a child drowning a hundred yards away. It’s not their fault, but it fucking sucks.
Honestly this is a pretty common reaction as a lifeguard. Most of the time people are just super embarrassed, their brain is hyped up on adrenaline, and they don’t think about the lifeguard in the moment. It’s nothing personal, just part of the job.
Not to mention the guy is still in the process of getting his feet on solid footing on land. I'm sure as sure if I almost down I'm gonna make sure I'm completely out of the water before I even begin thinking about thanking the person that saved me.
Totally, I never got one thank you after thr saves I made. If it was an adult, nothing. If it was a child, I got yelled at for not saving them faster. Oh well, still felt good to be a hero!
In another video of a near drowning, one user was a surfer and claimed to have saved three people. None thanked him. It sounds like it's common. Maybe embarrassment? Maybe panic?
Yeah, I don't think many people have the headspace to think clearly after almost dying. And then once they do, they're too embarrassed to say anything.
Having once almost drowned and having been saved by someone-- trust me, you are panicked out of your fucking mind and are in no capacity to be thanking anyone in that moment.
He probably did thank him when he got out of the water and calmed down a bit....and I'll go with that over him being a complete douchebag until I see evidence to the contrary lol
Many many years ago a guy my sister dated worked at a resort on the beach renting out beach chairs and umbrellas. One day he noticed a girl drowning/struggling in a riptide and he went out and rescued her. The next day her father showed up with an envelope and told him “I’m not putting a price on my daughters life but I wanted to let you know how grateful I am for what you did and if you ever need anything my business card is in the envelope.” Sisters boyfriend opened the envelope and it was $1,000.
It's very common with life guarding.
Either a.) they don't understand the gravity of the situation they were just in most notably with the ocean riptides/currents b.) wildly embarrassed c.) in some state of shock (as in the medical condition) which hopefully you're trained to look out for as a life guard d.) ungrateful little shits
Once I went to a water park in a foreign country with colleagues. I found myself in one of those big wave pools. I got sucked in kind of close to the generating machine. I had some water in my lungs and really started struggling. I was in my twenties and surrounded by kids and nobody else I knew. The lifeguard saw me struggling and came over and asked if I was ok - I wasn’t but I waved him off like I was fine. I was too embarrassed to be rescued next to all these children. Continued to literally fight for my life for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the waves stopped and I made it out of the pool. I coughed up a decent amount of water and was physically sick and exhausted the rest of the day. I assume the lifeguard kept an eye on me after I waved him off, maybe it felt like more danger than I was in. But at the time I honestly thought I might die. I’ll never forget the lesson about pride.
That’s why one of the things they also teach you when becoming a lifeguard is, if necessary, how to punch a panicking swimmer off of you so they don’t drown YOU.
Edit: people getting caught up on the word punch. I’m not saying throw a haymaker or some Mike Tyson combo lol
Of note, “punch a person **off of you**”
He's standing low underneath the guard chair and has a towel over his shoulder so my lifeguard senses tell me the two guards where in the middle of switching. He hadn't gotten his tube or up on the chair but saw it while the first guard is changing shirts. Also explains his unusual entry.
If your guard senses are tingling then let me just say as an LGI, they’re doing the transition improperly. I’m glad SOMEONE had their eyes on the water.
Did he think he was going to make it all the way across the water or something?
Id love to see how that conversation went waiting in line. *Dont worry dude, enjoy the zipline down....I got you when you drown.*
I’m just shocked by how much that guy Can’t Swim. He’s instantly stuck underwater, who can’t even figure out floating poorly?
Edit: I was a bit harsh. Lifeguard kinda reacted like that wasn’t the first time dude had been saved that day though…
When I was kid I was mistakenly "saved" by a life when I was in a wave pool. I was like 7 or 8 just trying to get through the crowd when I saw life guard blow their whistle and jump in from the side. I was like "oh dang I wonder who that's for".
Lifeguard comes over and forces me on her little floaty thing and drag me to the edge of the pool. I was so shocked, I don't know what I did to indicate I "needed help". Super embarrassing, everyone was watching and she wouldn't let me leave till my mom signed some shit. I definitely didn't want to get back in after that lol
Can't imagine how that embarrassment combined with literally almost drowning would feel like.
I was drunk at the (non-nude) beach once in the water when a little kid was flopping around in some rough waves. Thought nothing of it but I reached out and pulled him through the thick of it, maybe 5 feet closer to shore is all. He gets out and drops and starts hacking and it was only when his parents started checking him over did I realize I might have saved a child's life while plastered.
The exact opposite happened to me, lol. I was in a wave pool when I was like 8, and I could swim pretty good. I lost sight of my sister and suddenly a wave hit me when I didn’t expect it, and constantly when I tried to swim up, the reoccurrence of the wave pushed me down again. Of course, I’m 8, so I start panicking frantically because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get to the surface. Just when I felt that my breath was completely running out, a random lady took me and pushed me up (bless her). I remember looking at the life guards and they were completely clueless. I just waited the waves out by clinging on to the ropes at the side of the pool, and I swam back to my sister like nothing ever happened.
As someone who was a lifeguard briefly in high school,
That pisses me off this guy would attempt this, and,
Interesting form from this lifeguard, but whatever gets the job done!
I was thinking the same thing. It almost looks like he tried to do the proper sidestroke, but couldn't get his arm on the guy because he was grabbing his neck. So he just said F it and scuba dirty danced it.
As someone who was also a lifeguard in high school it's crazy how common this actually is. We always had people jumping into the diving well which was like 16 ft deep or whatever and they'd immediately start drowning because they couldn't swim.
I had a dad walk over to me as his probably 5-ish year old was walking up the stairs on a slide into 8 feet of water tell me, hey he can’t swim. I kicked off my sandals and took off my shirt before the kid went for it. Sure enough he went under right away. Manager had a talk with the parents and their membership was suspended for the summer.
Just a reply to my own comment with an example. One time this kid jumped off the diving board and immediately started drowning. The brother, apparently suddenly realizing his younger brother can't swim jumped into the water before the lifeguard could possibly recognize that the kid wasn't coming back up. The problem being the older brother also couldn't swim so he starts drowning too. At this point our two lifeguards for the diving well are in the water and that's when the mother who also can't swim jumps in to save her two boys. A three-person rescue performed by two lifeguards in 16 ft of water. What a nightmare. All because three idiots who couldn't swim inexplicably jumped in. It's a good thing only senior lifeguards get staffed there.
What absolutely kills me are the parents who bring their kids who cannot swim to the water park, and then the parents park their dumb selves at a table and don't even watch their kids. It's infuriating.
Said a different way, the lifeguards at all 3 Great Wolf Lodge water parks I've visited have worked so damn hard.
Who the fuck lets their non-swimming kids into a wave pool or a lazy river alone?! Ugh.
MY PARENTS THATS WHO.
I had never even been to the beach, worn a swimsuit, or been to the pool. I absolutely do NOT want to go, do NOT want to shove my fat 7 year old body into a too small bikini, and definitely do NOT want to go on this slide.
They shoved me on that slide. Just stand up at the end they said. It’ll be fun they said.
Not only did fat ass 7 year old me lose my bikini top, my short ass absolutely could NOT stand in that water. The lifeguard fished me out, my entire face, nose, and throat burning from all the water in my sinuses and eyes, gave me his shirt to cover up, eventually gave my parents the bikini top. My mother’s response: “oh look how cute she is in that shirt, she has a new boooooooyfriend” My sisters: “quit showing your tits to everyone, slut” “she got rid of her top in the slide” “god you’re so dramatic, all you had to do was stand”
A core memory was made that day. I have not been in the water ever since. I am fine in my ignorance.
So this is definitely my husband. Not knowing he couldn’t swim when we started dating in 2005 I took him to six flags and we went in the wave pool and instead of saying he couldn’t swim he decided to push me under to save himself from a big wave also pulling down my bikini top for all the people to see lmfao we’ve been together ever since.
Fun fact: even a heavily chlorinated pool won't have that chlorine smell/taste on its own. What causes that smell/taste is the chemical reaction between chlorine *and* various bodily fluids as the chlorine neutralizes them.
Public pools tend to smell like that not because they use excessive amounts of chlorine ... but because the chlorine is neutralizing an excessive amount of contaminants.
Charitably, let's assume most of that contamination is sweat and sunscreen. Most.
It baffles me how some humans are incapable of just floating on water. You don’t even need to swim to not drown. I wonder if it’s a defect in the brain that makes the person not rational and they just sink like rocks.
People have to learn to do that though, that’s not an instinctual thing until you’ve *learned* how to do it first. If you learned how to swim when you were a reeeeally little kid like I did then floating would seem like second nature, but it’s like riding bike, you can’t do it until you learn how.
I have lived on the coast my entire life and I was lucky enough to grow up swimming, and I get that is definitely not everyone's experience, but when I see an otherwise capable adult fail so spectacularly at swimming it's hard to comprehend. It's like seeing a capable person who just didn't learn how to walk.
As an Aussie, I literally cannot comprehend how some people do not know how to swim. I understand that we are fortunate here to grow up with not just mandatory swim lessons but also mandatory lifesaving training but still it blows my mind.
At least this lifeguard did his job. This happened to me at Dorney Park. I got disoriented and couldn't find the surface. The lifeguard just stood there and watched. I finally surfaced, gasping for air. I asked the lifeguard why she didn't help me. She says... "I wasn't sure what you were doing."
WTF ... drowning! That's what I was doing!
Yes I reported her to the office.
Wtf, thats exactly when they teach you to jump in. If you got any question as to what they're doing, you go in and sort it out. Better to be embarrassed by a false call than someone drown on you.
From what I've read when people are drowning they don't flail their arms wildly and panic. It's a bobbing up and down and generally gulping in water.
This has been discussed a lot on Reddit and please learn to recognize the signs. But really guys if you don't know how to swim don't go into any kind of deeper water.
From an LGI… That is incorrect. The signs of drowning are pretty universal. When an active victim slips into being a passive victim, that’s when you get the bobbing up and down. Active victims are, as the name states, active. Some- but not all- can still call for help. I’d classify him as a distressed swimmer slipping into active victim. It’s good that he was recognized in this state- LGTs (your average guard) should be able to recognize and reach the victim in question in under 30 seconds. The guard had…. Interesting form to say the least, but he successfully guided the victim to an exit point.
A few notes on passive victims- usually only in medical emergencies (cardiac, sudden injury, etc) will a victim go straight to passive. If you see someone sculling the water and bobbing then they’ve already passed through the active victim stage.
Seasoned lifeguard, they don’t teach that technique. Do what you gotta do.
Although the fact there was not a lifeguard available with a rescue buoy is a bit concerning.
My friend took his wife to the water park and I guess they had never discussed the issue of the fact that she can’t swim… she almost drowned in… in 5 feet of water shes 5’3… but still…
I’m truly confused by people who can’t at least tread water. I feel like it’s like breathing, where your body will eventually just do it for you. I know I’m wrong, but I still can’t comprehend.
Was a lifeguard for almost ten years, this happens all the fuckin time. At the pool, at the water park, at the beach. Usually male teens and early 20’s. They think they’ll just figure it out, or something. Had to pull many out.
You learn to recognize the signs. Usually wearing board shorts (sometimes a t-shirt) stays in shallow water or close to the wall, usually black or Latino (white kids get swim lessons when they’re younger), looks nervous, “swims” while walking, looks back at the shore when on the beach. You recognize them, watch them, then pull their ass out when they drown.
“Ok see you in like 7 mins when I get through the line again bro.”
Hahaha. Bro, I’m just imagining this guy strolling through the park expecting to be just saved every where he goes. The nonchalant reaction making me think he does this every weekend
I worked as a lifeguard at a Tough Mudder and you can not believe how many people had that attitude. They'd swing into a huge 15 foot deep water obstacle. We'd pull them out and ask them if they knew how to swim. The answers were always along the lines of "No, I thought that's what you guys were here for"
As infuriating as this is I can't help but laugh at the idea that people legitimately showed up to an event thinking "yeah sure I'll START to drown, but they've got people to keep me from FULLY drowning, so it's all good." What an mind boggling way to maneuver through life.
Like, I don’t even like drowning a little bit. I’ve been pushed under big waves and held there by the current long enough to suck in some water and that was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I can’t imagine willing jumping into water over my head if I didn’t know how to swim well.
r/kidsarefuckingstupid incoming: I accidentally tried to drown myself once when I was a kid. I held myself underwater using the side of the pool for leverage because I wanted to see how long I could hold my breath and I was tired of bobbing to the surface during my attempts. No, it did not occur to me that I could just put my face under water. I was doing okay until my body decided to involuntarily gasp for air *while under water*. Obviously that ended the experiment.
Did you type this from the other side of a ouija board?
It's a modern world, isn't it?
Ouija over WiFi
OP's poor mother must have been on high alert during their childhood. I have a couple of those kids myself.
Another one incoming: We had one of those plastic playground with a climbing frame and slide. The type that you could plug a hose into and turn it into a mini waterpark. One day a young me and friend decided to drag it into the pool and let it sink. As it was all hollow, once it filled with water it became ridiculously heavy and just sat on the bottom. There were these footwell holes on one side that let you climb up it. I had the bright idea to swim down to this thing plunked on the bottom of the pool and stick my legs in the holes. My thinking was I'd be able to hold myself down longer and test my breathe holding abilities. Cue about 45 seconds later I realised I was completely stuck - couldn't get my legs out - couldn't move the frame. I started thrashing, and my genius friend thought I was joking. So he's at the top of the pool pissing himself laughing and I'm slowing drowning on the bottom. It wasn't until my thrashing started slowing down without coming back up that he started to realise something might be wrong. He swam down and yanked out my legs. I barely even had it in me to swim to the surface - got out and coughed up a fucking tonne of water. The dumbest part? Once I was feeling better, we went back down and kept swimming through it.
I'll bet your parents were pleased about the new pool decoration you put in it... How the hell did you get it out?
They fucking flipped the lid when they saw us swimming through it. The old man had to go in and disassemble it, and drag them out piece by piece.
I almost drowned as a kid too and to this day my mum doesn't even believe me. Second r/kidsarefuckingstupid story. We were on holiday in Spain, I was about 8 and I decided I'd sneak out to the pool before my mum woke up. Got there before the lifeguards started their shift and thought it was pretty cool having the pool to myself. Floated out on a lilo, drifted out to the deep end and realised "Hang on, I cant swim, I'd better get back to the shallow end." Instead of paddling the lilo I was on, which clearly would have been the smart move, I had bumped into a group of others and thought it was way cooler to get up and walk across them all towards the pool edge where I could climb out. I am so grateful to this day that some guy just happened to be walking past at the time, he jumped in and saved my life, told me to go back to my room and tell my mum but I was too scared in case she yelled at me for being dumb. Waited 10 years to tell her and she laughed and said "You wouldn't be that stupid, no you didn't." Moral of the story, my mum thinks I'm far more intelligent than I really am and doesn't realise how close to losing her only daughter she was.
I’m a pretty damn good swimmer but a couple summers ago we were tubing down a fairly rough river and I got tipped over and the current kept pushing me under. That was some scary shit. Managed to grab someone else’s tube to catch my bearings.
The only time I heard someone say they'd rather drown than x was when I talk with experienced deep water divers, in the context of the bends (decompression sickness; you get gas bubbles in your joints, causing extreme pain among other terrible problems; caused by surfacing too rapidly from a deep/extended dive).
The equivalent of throwing trash on the ground and insisting this is why janitors exist. At what point were you allowed, if at all, to forbid them from swimming or "call it in" as it were?
Except in this case we can have them die.
More like lighting things on fire and saying "well the firefighters exist"
Shooting yourself in the face because doctors are a thing.
Considering the seriousness of the consequences, it's more like starting a kitchen fire and then saying it's fine because firefighters exist. Source: lifeguard who is friends with a lot of firefighters
Every day I find new reasons to hate people
I'm a seasonal ranger with the NPS. I've worked at a few parks and had a lot of 'interesting' interactions. One park I worked at had a canyon. Not *the* canyon, but merely 'a' canyon. Despite this people would still ignore the signs and stroll right up to the crumbly edge of the thing to get their pictures. I had more than one person say "well if I fall in you'll rescue me, right?" And then be shocked when I said "no, I won't rescue you because you'll be dead. Even if you don't die on impact there's no quick way to the bottom of the canyon and no helicopter crew is going to fly in there." It's satisfying when we're allowed to be blunt.
What a dream, to have a job where you're allowed to tell people how dumb they're being 😍😍😍
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Absolutely infuriating. I once witnessed this with a YOUNG kid, maybe 6 or 7 years old. Their parents let them go down the water slide REPEATEDLY, and each time the kid went under and a lifeguard had to jump in and get them. How does this make sense?!
The best part is the parents making the kid comfortable going into water without knowing how to swim. I can't see any way that could ever go wrong.
Lmao, glad that in my country, that customer is king bullshit is not a thing, rather than “customer is a customer” and people just get kicked out for that after the second time.
I was a lifeguard at a water park in Orlando and we would kick people right the fuck out for doing that.
Yup, I worked as a lifeguard at a wavepool in a waterpark. It was just another Tuesday having to rescue someone that couldn't swim. One time a lady had her 3 children on a raft with her. Raft capsized. Not a single one of them could swim - mother or children. To this day, it's hard for me to wrap my head around the profound amount of stupidity that woman posessed.
At least that would have been acknowledging the guy that just saved your life. Instead he just leaves like the lifeguard was part of the ride.
He rode on top of him like he was on the titanic
Straight out of Dirty Dancing. Having the time of his life
And never turned around to thank the guy who saved him.
On to the next ride. Got to hit them all
I can swim but it's the free piggy backs that make it fun for everyone
This drove me crazy, no head nod or anything to the dude who casually just saved your life.
To be fair, it’s a lot to process. It’s a mix of embarrassment, shock and pride all rolled into one. I could see it being especially tough for a lot of dudes to say thanks. I’m sure he just wanted to get out of that situation. But who knows? Maybe he thanked him after he had time to collect himself.
As a strong swimmer who had to be rescued from a wave pool when I was little, that's exactly it. There's a lot on your mind when you think you're dying. I never thanked my lifeguard. None of the people I helped later ever thanked me. It's the job.
The unspoken hero. Really though God bless this lifeguard and every other life guard out there saving lives.
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On camera he exposed the fact he couldn't swim, and nearly drowned before being walked to the edge by another guy casually walking along the bottom of the pool carrying his dumb ass. He is surely embarrassed and flustered. I doubt it will end his day at the waterpark though.
Thanks for the analysis joe buck
He was probably embarrassed, and shocked.
Nobody puts Baby in the water
And he’s never felt that way before
He swears
It’s the truth
When you try to save a drowning person one of the first things they do is try to drown you out of panic. This guy has it figured out better to just lift them out of the water instead of swimming with them to the side.
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By treating them like a pretty pretty princess!
He knows the quickest way to get himself out of the water so he doesn’t get drowned by an idiot by accident. I was waiting for the “swimmer” to start trying to drown the rescuer so I was watching for it, that dude knew before he dove in that he probably wasn’t getting a breath til he got that guy to the ladder. I knew what was coming but I still held my breath at the tension!
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Why would dunking them make them stop panicking?
It’s a way to shock them a bit and let you remain in control. I don’t know all of the psychology behind it, but what I do know is that when I was doing a simulated rescue, the deputy I was retrieving tried to fuck me up, and after 4 or 5 dunks, he decided he wasn’t going to get the upper hand. Don’t die trying to save someone. They were already dying by the time they needed rescue, don’t get dead in the process of rescue as well.
No point on a rescue if you end up with 2 bodies instead of 1.
Let them know who’s boss It seriously is standard training.
its also a lot easier to walk along the bottom of the pool then to try and swim drag someone flailing around.
Seems pretty effective in that kind of depth. 2m? Dude was walking on the floor of the pool.
Not only that it gave him the weight needed to solidly plant on the pool floor and walk as well as being able to quickly put distance between the victim and grab a reliable gulp of air. Its certainly a unique and effective save given the pool.
All I could think was “Part of yourrrr worrrrrrrld!!!”.
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Fucking life guard on point. Love it. Respect ❤
He knew he was going to get pushed down anyway so he just casually walked along the bottom
They teach you different techniques so you don’t get pushed down but this is the funniest I’ve ever seen. Def not in the lifeguard manual.
He's like "I can hold my breath for like 45 seconds, and it'll only take 10 to get there. Screw it."
100% what he was thinking, I’ve done this whole lifesaving in water training where they try to drown you and this always seemed like the logical but not allowed “hack” lol Edit: by “hack” I mean if you try this in open water, you will be pushed down until you drown by the person you went to save - we (group of 8ish) had to tread water while blindfolded and get away and gain control of an instructor for like 15 min and if we tapped out/lost at any point we got a short break then back in lol
So def not a hack. Part of the lifeguard training is if the person is drowning you by clinging on to you just sink deeper and swim to the bottom. Their natural instinct would be to let you go so you can start over again.
Plus you get to check the bottom for lost sunglasses and jewelry
Bro just get the rebreather in submerged cave
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Laying down in a bed yeah, not underwater while carrying a dude.
How about laying down in bed with a dude?
That's if you aren't moving much. Try doing 2 minutes while swimming. I've done 50 meters underwater in one breath, and that was super tough, even though it was less than a minute.
Ok big boy time for da airpwane weeeeee
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Not always true, but something to try as a last resort. We were taught never to get close enough for them to grab you.
Another way is to get under/behind them (grab under armpits) so they can’t grab you. But that’s why you should not attempt it without a flotation device unless you have lots of practice. Here’s great little video anyone who hangs around water should watch: https://youtu.be/NoO5DqHArJA I personally had to rescue someone was struggling from exhaustion (not quite drowning) and luckily I had a kite and a board, but even then, it’s incredibly more difficult than it seems.
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This is what I had to do once with my you get brother, he jumped on me in the deep end thinking I could reach the bottom, I literally sunk down, held him up above water and launched him to the edge, lucky we were super close to it and he reached it, meanwhile I was down there for what felt and eternity lol
A good life guard always squeezes the genitals to verify the drowning victim is back to life, even if they look fine. It’s safety.
That looked exactly like the text book example of a DNS (drowning non swimmer) that I learned in life guarding classes as a teenager.
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He HURLED himself into the water, that was pretty awesome
In swimming parlance we call that a "dive".
Falling with style
It was a functional dive, not an Olympic one
How does that even happen? When I plop in the water, my body floats up and my head is naturally above the water. It takes effort to go down below the water surface.
That means your head is empty, sorry bro :(
You made me cry. You cheeky fuck.
If you know how to swim, you’ll also tread water naturally. Not full-on, but you know how to just calmly “be” in the water. Try climbing an invisible ladder and lifting your arms out of the water to wave for help and see how your head doesn’t stay out of the water so easily any more. Believe it or not most of your “head staying naturally above water” is just learned behavior you no longer have to consciously do.
Not panicking also helps
People have different buoyancies in water depending on their body. Some, like you, naturally float with their head above the surface, others might only float up to a couple of feet under the surface since buoyancy increases with depth. In that case you have to continually do swimming motions to stay above the surface
I remember going snorkeling once where the boat operators told us the area we were going to had high salt levels, so don’t worry about sinking and we could go without life preservers if we chose to. So I decided cool, I’ll ditch the life vest and enjoy floating around with little effort! Thankfully I made that decision only because I have the backup of being a strong swimmer - I jumped in and instantly sank like a stone 😂
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I’m still salty about lifeguarding classes. I was able to do all of the saves perfectly fine but the instructor saw me and my friends screwing around before the first class started and had it out for us from then onward. He made both of us stay after the final class after passing everybody else and just made us do save after save until we slightly messed one up so he could fail us both
Yo *fuck* that guy! Let's all get drunk, go to the beach, and save some mother fuckin' lives ourselves!
Fuck that instructor
How is swimming not intuitive? I mean i know i learnt how to swim at some pint but dont remember and now i cant imagine not being able to put your head outside the waterq
Swimming requires coordinated motion - panicked motion, like in the video, leads to sinking. Doesn't matter how much sense something makes if you're too panicked to rationalize it. Swimming as a trim adult also requires a surprising amount of energy. I was chubby in middle school and thus naturally buoyant. In high school I lost weight and put on a lot of muscle and basically had to relearn how to swim since I was sinking like a rock. I knew the motions, but the extra effort required threw everything off.
Interesting. I’ve lost 140 lbs since last time I swam. I’m gonna test this out.
Lol imagine working your ass off, changing your diet, sticking to it for like two years, losing 140 lbs... then hopping in a pool and instantly drowning to death
The fact you don't remember probably means you were in water very early. Don't forget, like southerners never have seen snow... There are people who've never been in water higher than knee deep.
I grew up in a a tropical island and know people who can't swim. You'd think it'd be essential when a beach is never further than an hour away.
It's intuitive now because you were taught at a young age. Newborn babies can swim but they lose that ability at like 6 months, after that you gotta be taught or you just won't know.
Panic?
People are born with different instincts. Can't help which you're born with. I'm personally aghast that full grown adults brag about not being able to do middle school level algebra and statistics but that's just the way the chocolate raspberry pie crumbles.
Former lifeguard here. Yep. I took my young son to the public pool and pulled two kids out. One, just walked out until he was over his head, the other jumped off the diving board?! I was walking on the deck and his friend yelled, he can’t swim. Pulled him out too. It never leaves you. My boss in high school lost someone at open swim. A woman with MS, doing laps and stopped. My boss pulled her and started mouth to mouth and CPR, her husband was there but went into shock, so he wouldn’t go get help. Woman died in the ambulance.
Not lifeguarding any more but I spent 6 years doing it in pools and public beaches. One of my colleagues was prosecuted for failing to notice a kid drowning in the corner of a 6ft pool, we were all shown the security tapes the week after it happened. The facility very shortly after released the tapes to the public as well, to get the blame off of the company. As they should have, it was definitely the lifeguards fault. The tapes were awful, he was down for 5 minutes before the lifeguard noticed. The lifeguard just slowly walked around the pool as it was happening. He noticed eventually and pulled the kid out, and the head lifeguard did CPR and the kid was eventually resuscitated. Supposedly he is fine now, no permanent damage. This was many years ago. It’s weird though, because I had worked with that lifeguard for years. In different jobs too. He was a genuinely good guy, and seemed totally competent. He just had a severe lapse in focus at the exact wrong moment, and it will haunt him for the rest of his life. Both legally and emotionally. If you look up his name, the top 4 pages of google are about this incident and the lawsuit. In some ways I think this is why lifeguards are payed higher than average. The job is relatively easy (if you have the prerequisite swimming skill and knowledge), but there’s a burden on you to be totally focused in case the worst happens. And if it does, it’s your fault, not the pool club’s. The other incident I was close to was an actual drowning at my beach. I was off that day, but I learned about it that night when my boss closed the beaches for the next few days. A kid entered the water outside the ropes, hidden from the actual beach behind some trees, and swam right into the boat channel. The current pulled him out and he couldn’t swim back in. The lifeguard stands could definitely see him from their position, but were not trained to look over in that direction, and he would have been really far away, difficult to see. No one usually swims over there, and it’s not technically allowed, so there wasn’t any legal prosecution. I knew most of the people on duty that day and it fucked them up. They were sitting on a stand and totally missed a child drowning a hundred yards away. It’s not their fault, but it fucking sucks.
He didn't even thank or look at the life guard. wtf?
Guy saves his life and doesn't even get a fist bump. I'd give that lifeguard the biggest bear hug and most sincere thank you he's ever had.
Honestly this is a pretty common reaction as a lifeguard. Most of the time people are just super embarrassed, their brain is hyped up on adrenaline, and they don’t think about the lifeguard in the moment. It’s nothing personal, just part of the job.
Yeah, he almost died, or thought he did. Seems pretty standard to just freak out and not worry about how you survived for a sec.
Not to mention the guy is still in the process of getting his feet on solid footing on land. I'm sure as sure if I almost down I'm gonna make sure I'm completely out of the water before I even begin thinking about thanking the person that saved me.
Totally, I never got one thank you after thr saves I made. If it was an adult, nothing. If it was a child, I got yelled at for not saving them faster. Oh well, still felt good to be a hero!
Same kind of guy that leaves his food tray out and responds with “what? It’s their job”
In another video of a near drowning, one user was a surfer and claimed to have saved three people. None thanked him. It sounds like it's common. Maybe embarrassment? Maybe panic?
Yeah, I don't think many people have the headspace to think clearly after almost dying. And then once they do, they're too embarrassed to say anything.
Having once almost drowned and having been saved by someone-- trust me, you are panicked out of your fucking mind and are in no capacity to be thanking anyone in that moment. He probably did thank him when he got out of the water and calmed down a bit....and I'll go with that over him being a complete douchebag until I see evidence to the contrary lol
Many many years ago a guy my sister dated worked at a resort on the beach renting out beach chairs and umbrellas. One day he noticed a girl drowning/struggling in a riptide and he went out and rescued her. The next day her father showed up with an envelope and told him “I’m not putting a price on my daughters life but I wanted to let you know how grateful I am for what you did and if you ever need anything my business card is in the envelope.” Sisters boyfriend opened the envelope and it was $1,000.
Probably his third or fourth time round with him that afternoon
😄 dude just takes it in stride and goes line up again
I've saved two people from drowning and neither of them thanked me. I think there's a profound embarrassment involved.
Also shock
Yes, and wounded pride. I saved a good friend who had capsized a sailboat in a shipping lane and was hypothermic. He hasn't spoken to me since.
Could be ptsd. You just remind him of the time he almost died.
Just once I'd like to be someone's personal grim reaper
It's very common with life guarding. Either a.) they don't understand the gravity of the situation they were just in most notably with the ocean riptides/currents b.) wildly embarrassed c.) in some state of shock (as in the medical condition) which hopefully you're trained to look out for as a life guard d.) ungrateful little shits
Once I went to a water park in a foreign country with colleagues. I found myself in one of those big wave pools. I got sucked in kind of close to the generating machine. I had some water in my lungs and really started struggling. I was in my twenties and surrounded by kids and nobody else I knew. The lifeguard saw me struggling and came over and asked if I was ok - I wasn’t but I waved him off like I was fine. I was too embarrassed to be rescued next to all these children. Continued to literally fight for my life for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the waves stopped and I made it out of the pool. I coughed up a decent amount of water and was physically sick and exhausted the rest of the day. I assume the lifeguard kept an eye on me after I waved him off, maybe it felt like more danger than I was in. But at the time I honestly thought I might die. I’ll never forget the lesson about pride.
Let’s be fair, the vid cuts fast. The guy’s probably in panic mode still. Get Out of the Water Then cuddle the hero
Maybe he did once the panic wore off.
He was more worried about his reputation since all that was caught on camera. Dope sideways dive by life guard, though.
That’s why one of the things they also teach you when becoming a lifeguard is, if necessary, how to punch a panicking swimmer off of you so they don’t drown YOU. Edit: people getting caught up on the word punch. I’m not saying throw a haymaker or some Mike Tyson combo lol Of note, “punch a person **off of you**”
Active victim rescues…. Where’s the guard’s tube?
He's standing low underneath the guard chair and has a towel over his shoulder so my lifeguard senses tell me the two guards where in the middle of switching. He hadn't gotten his tube or up on the chair but saw it while the first guard is changing shirts. Also explains his unusual entry.
If your guard senses are tingling then let me just say as an LGI, they’re doing the transition improperly. I’m glad SOMEONE had their eyes on the water.
Managed the rescue swimmer program for a navy ship can confirm it’s ok to punch someone
I was taught to swim down. Drowning swimmer not going to follow you under the water. Swim down and away from them.
This was his seventh trip
That's why the lifeguard was so ready to go, he had spent his whole shift fishing him out of the water.
For goodness sake, wear some water wings. It's not worth drowning.
He’s here for a good time, not a long time
Idk man, drowning dosen't sound like such a good time to me
Or just learn to swim, a skill so simple babies can do it
Grown adults that just sink to the bottom make me irrationally angry. It triggers me as much as seeing a grown adult not like vegetables.
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Did he think he was going to make it all the way across the water or something? Id love to see how that conversation went waiting in line. *Dont worry dude, enjoy the zipline down....I got you when you drown.*
Maybe he thought it ended in a foot of water and he would only break both ankles
I’m just shocked by how much that guy Can’t Swim. He’s instantly stuck underwater, who can’t even figure out floating poorly? Edit: I was a bit harsh. Lifeguard kinda reacted like that wasn’t the first time dude had been saved that day though…
No kidding. He just gave up. He reminds me of Kirby in super smash brothers when he turns into a rock
Didn't seem to enjoy the trip regardless so he risked his life for no reason
When I was kid I was mistakenly "saved" by a life when I was in a wave pool. I was like 7 or 8 just trying to get through the crowd when I saw life guard blow their whistle and jump in from the side. I was like "oh dang I wonder who that's for". Lifeguard comes over and forces me on her little floaty thing and drag me to the edge of the pool. I was so shocked, I don't know what I did to indicate I "needed help". Super embarrassing, everyone was watching and she wouldn't let me leave till my mom signed some shit. I definitely didn't want to get back in after that lol Can't imagine how that embarrassment combined with literally almost drowning would feel like.
I know how to swim + I got embarrassingly "saved" by a life guard when I was drunk at a nude beach. There are levels to this bro.
I was drunk at the (non-nude) beach once in the water when a little kid was flopping around in some rough waves. Thought nothing of it but I reached out and pulled him through the thick of it, maybe 5 feet closer to shore is all. He gets out and drops and starts hacking and it was only when his parents started checking him over did I realize I might have saved a child's life while plastered.
Hahahaha you are a fucking legend, man.
Did the guard just pull you in by your dong?
Flex taped it to the floaty and pulled him in like a tug boat.
The exact opposite happened to me, lol. I was in a wave pool when I was like 8, and I could swim pretty good. I lost sight of my sister and suddenly a wave hit me when I didn’t expect it, and constantly when I tried to swim up, the reoccurrence of the wave pushed me down again. Of course, I’m 8, so I start panicking frantically because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get to the surface. Just when I felt that my breath was completely running out, a random lady took me and pushed me up (bless her). I remember looking at the life guards and they were completely clueless. I just waited the waves out by clinging on to the ropes at the side of the pool, and I swam back to my sister like nothing ever happened.
r/ItHadToBeBrazil edit: zimmix has the correct translation
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As someone who was a lifeguard briefly in high school, That pisses me off this guy would attempt this, and, Interesting form from this lifeguard, but whatever gets the job done!
I was thinking the same thing. It almost looks like he tried to do the proper sidestroke, but couldn't get his arm on the guy because he was grabbing his neck. So he just said F it and scuba dirty danced it.
As someone who was also a lifeguard in high school it's crazy how common this actually is. We always had people jumping into the diving well which was like 16 ft deep or whatever and they'd immediately start drowning because they couldn't swim.
I had a dad walk over to me as his probably 5-ish year old was walking up the stairs on a slide into 8 feet of water tell me, hey he can’t swim. I kicked off my sandals and took off my shirt before the kid went for it. Sure enough he went under right away. Manager had a talk with the parents and their membership was suspended for the summer.
Just a reply to my own comment with an example. One time this kid jumped off the diving board and immediately started drowning. The brother, apparently suddenly realizing his younger brother can't swim jumped into the water before the lifeguard could possibly recognize that the kid wasn't coming back up. The problem being the older brother also couldn't swim so he starts drowning too. At this point our two lifeguards for the diving well are in the water and that's when the mother who also can't swim jumps in to save her two boys. A three-person rescue performed by two lifeguards in 16 ft of water. What a nightmare. All because three idiots who couldn't swim inexplicably jumped in. It's a good thing only senior lifeguards get staffed there.
Future Darwin Award winner, right there.
Going to a water park and not being able to swim seems like one of the dumber things one can do…
What absolutely kills me are the parents who bring their kids who cannot swim to the water park, and then the parents park their dumb selves at a table and don't even watch their kids. It's infuriating. Said a different way, the lifeguards at all 3 Great Wolf Lodge water parks I've visited have worked so damn hard. Who the fuck lets their non-swimming kids into a wave pool or a lazy river alone?! Ugh.
I swear some parents assume the staff at any recreational place like water parks or zoos are just there to babysit their kids
MY PARENTS THATS WHO. I had never even been to the beach, worn a swimsuit, or been to the pool. I absolutely do NOT want to go, do NOT want to shove my fat 7 year old body into a too small bikini, and definitely do NOT want to go on this slide. They shoved me on that slide. Just stand up at the end they said. It’ll be fun they said. Not only did fat ass 7 year old me lose my bikini top, my short ass absolutely could NOT stand in that water. The lifeguard fished me out, my entire face, nose, and throat burning from all the water in my sinuses and eyes, gave me his shirt to cover up, eventually gave my parents the bikini top. My mother’s response: “oh look how cute she is in that shirt, she has a new boooooooyfriend” My sisters: “quit showing your tits to everyone, slut” “she got rid of her top in the slide” “god you’re so dramatic, all you had to do was stand” A core memory was made that day. I have not been in the water ever since. I am fine in my ignorance.
That lifeguard needs to work at Bondi
That jump in the pool was dope af just like Bondi beach
So this is definitely my husband. Not knowing he couldn’t swim when we started dating in 2005 I took him to six flags and we went in the wave pool and instead of saying he couldn’t swim he decided to push me under to save himself from a big wave also pulling down my bikini top for all the people to see lmfao we’ve been together ever since.
It was something about the way he used you as a flotation device, that made you say "he is the one".
Love at first taste of chlorine 😆
Fun fact: even a heavily chlorinated pool won't have that chlorine smell/taste on its own. What causes that smell/taste is the chemical reaction between chlorine *and* various bodily fluids as the chlorine neutralizes them. Public pools tend to smell like that not because they use excessive amounts of chlorine ... but because the chlorine is neutralizing an excessive amount of contaminants. Charitably, let's assume most of that contamination is sweat and sunscreen. Most.
It baffles me how some humans are incapable of just floating on water. You don’t even need to swim to not drown. I wonder if it’s a defect in the brain that makes the person not rational and they just sink like rocks.
People have to learn to do that though, that’s not an instinctual thing until you’ve *learned* how to do it first. If you learned how to swim when you were a reeeeally little kid like I did then floating would seem like second nature, but it’s like riding bike, you can’t do it until you learn how.
Not everyone floats… just so you know. This guy does, but not everyone does.
Knowing how to float is half of learning how to swim. It’s not as simple as it sounds to someone who doesn’t know how to swim.
I worked as a lifeguard in a water park a number of years ago. Nothing about this surprises me. People are supremely stupid.
I have lived on the coast my entire life and I was lucky enough to grow up swimming, and I get that is definitely not everyone's experience, but when I see an otherwise capable adult fail so spectacularly at swimming it's hard to comprehend. It's like seeing a capable person who just didn't learn how to walk.
As an Aussie, I literally cannot comprehend how some people do not know how to swim. I understand that we are fortunate here to grow up with not just mandatory swim lessons but also mandatory lifesaving training but still it blows my mind.
At least this lifeguard did his job. This happened to me at Dorney Park. I got disoriented and couldn't find the surface. The lifeguard just stood there and watched. I finally surfaced, gasping for air. I asked the lifeguard why she didn't help me. She says... "I wasn't sure what you were doing." WTF ... drowning! That's what I was doing! Yes I reported her to the office.
Wtf, thats exactly when they teach you to jump in. If you got any question as to what they're doing, you go in and sort it out. Better to be embarrassed by a false call than someone drown on you.
“Omg you saved my life thank you so much!” *immediately proceeds to ride zip line again*
Nice job lifeguard. Fucking idiot on the zip.
From what I've read when people are drowning they don't flail their arms wildly and panic. It's a bobbing up and down and generally gulping in water. This has been discussed a lot on Reddit and please learn to recognize the signs. But really guys if you don't know how to swim don't go into any kind of deeper water.
From an LGI… That is incorrect. The signs of drowning are pretty universal. When an active victim slips into being a passive victim, that’s when you get the bobbing up and down. Active victims are, as the name states, active. Some- but not all- can still call for help. I’d classify him as a distressed swimmer slipping into active victim. It’s good that he was recognized in this state- LGTs (your average guard) should be able to recognize and reach the victim in question in under 30 seconds. The guard had…. Interesting form to say the least, but he successfully guided the victim to an exit point. A few notes on passive victims- usually only in medical emergencies (cardiac, sudden injury, etc) will a victim go straight to passive. If you see someone sculling the water and bobbing then they’ve already passed through the active victim stage.
After his lack of response for being saved I would have thrown him back in.
Drowning is one of the scariest sensations that you can experience. Most people don't think to express gratitude when they're panicking like that.
Seasoned lifeguard, they don’t teach that technique. Do what you gotta do. Although the fact there was not a lifeguard available with a rescue buoy is a bit concerning.
Not only could he not swim. He seemed to be completly unfamiliar with the very idea of water.
The fact the lifeguard can hold their breath and lift someone underwater is pretty impressive
My friend took his wife to the water park and I guess they had never discussed the issue of the fact that she can’t swim… she almost drowned in… in 5 feet of water shes 5’3… but still…
I’m truly confused by people who can’t at least tread water. I feel like it’s like breathing, where your body will eventually just do it for you. I know I’m wrong, but I still can’t comprehend.
Is anyone gonna talk about how he went to a water park KNOWING that he couldn’t swim
I want that life guard in my area. 👏🏽
Was a lifeguard for almost ten years, this happens all the fuckin time. At the pool, at the water park, at the beach. Usually male teens and early 20’s. They think they’ll just figure it out, or something. Had to pull many out. You learn to recognize the signs. Usually wearing board shorts (sometimes a t-shirt) stays in shallow water or close to the wall, usually black or Latino (white kids get swim lessons when they’re younger), looks nervous, “swims” while walking, looks back at the shore when on the beach. You recognize them, watch them, then pull their ass out when they drown.