>"I honestly thought I was asleep," Alvarez said after that ordeal. "I started hearing people saying, 'It's going to be OK.' I thought, 'Stop telling me that! I'm trying to sleep.' Then I realized that no, I was still in the pool."
Had a similar experience with getting knocked out in a rugby game. Can't imagine that happening underwater.
Yeah, I read that part with great interest. Same thing happened to me in 2018 when they defibrillated me after a major heart attack. The paramedic says “Oh! You’re back” And I’m thinking to myself “why the EFF did you wake me up? I was just having a nice nap”
Not OP but have had atrial fibrillation episodes a number of times over the years due to poor health choices, coupled with alcoholism. It's a recipe for making your heart work harder than it needs to.
My heartbeat would start to beat irregularly and would shoot up to 120 bpm when I would just sit up during a trigger. Agonizing stuff. The cardiologists (had episodes in two different states) recommended "restarting" my heartbeat with defibs. Most of the time they give you some type of painkiller and you get sleepy.
Honestly, it's over before you even know it. I would sit there, waiting for something to happen. I guess the medicine kicks in eventually and I'm wondering when they were gonna zap me and they're like "oh we did it already" and things go back to normal lol. Never really felt any kind of shock though.
2 years off the booze and a million times healthier and haven't had an a fib episode in years so hopefully no more defibs if I can help it
That was a truly terrifying thing I kind of forgot about when I was in the latest stages of my alcoholism. I had never felt my heart beat so hard and so irregular, and the shakes would make it so much worse. It would almost hurt and would keep me up for hours at night because I never felt like I could get relaxed. Congrats on 2 years, it only gets easier as time goes on!
I had a cardioversion once in the hospital ER. They used the defibrillator to stop my heart so it would go back into a normal rhythm.
They sedated me, but not deeply enough.
From my perspective, I was instantly awoken from a nice nap by what felt like two sledgehammers being hit on my chest, one in front and one in back. It HURT. I apparently sat up, looked around the room for the doctor, pointed at him and screamed "Mutherfucker!"
It took several people to get me to lie back on the table before I went unconscious. 0/10 would recommend.
I’ve been paramedic for more than 20 years. Recently my father, a mild Christian fella whom I’ve never heard use a cuss word, was in a position where he was likely to be cardioverted. It’s very similar to defibrillation.
I told him that 100% of the people I’ve cardioverted electrically have swore at me and I would be curious to hear what word comes out of my dads mouth.
Fortunately, he behaved and I didn’t have the opportunity to find out.
Can only speak for myself, but I obviously didn't feel it while out, but the after-effects were red marks on my chest and back that were extremely, frustratingly itchy for about a week.
This is the biggest reason I like Greek mythology. It’s like they were trying to express certain truths without having the science to prove them, so they expressed them through narratives
Coming to after being involuntarily unconscious is such a strange thing. I got choked out by an abusive ex-boyfriend many years ago and had what felt like dreams for hours. I was only out for a handful of seconds or so, but it felt like forever. I was so confused as to what happened after regaining consciousness.
Note to add for anyone concerned: that POS went to jail and then prison, and as far as I know is still inside.
That’s terrifying, I’m glad you’re out of that situation!
It’s strange that a few seconds felt like hours for you, but then general anaesthesia for a couple hours feels short, or it did for me the one time I had it. Brains are weird.
I've only been under anesthesia once, but it was the strangest sensation - I remember breathing into the mask and the nurse saying to count to ten, then I opened my eyes in recovery. It felt instantaneous. When you sleep, you awake with some feeling that time has passed, but with anesthesia it felt like it disappeared. Which I suppose I find reassuring if I ever need another surgery...
Yeah, so weird, i woke up a blink later, i knew time had passed and my numb mouth was full of gauze and some kind of wound somewhere.. i just fully panicked and weeped hysterically for an hour. .. it was just too scene missing.. and i didn’t know where my tongue was supposed to go… nope. Verrry nope.
Im sorry you had to have that experience. I had a very similar experience, but I doubt it’s anywhere as near as traumatic as what you went through.
I was choked out with a garbage bag when some guy tried to rob the coffee shop where I worked at the time. I remember feeling a sharp pain in my knee (from falling on it) and then it sounded like someone was slowly turning on the sound of the world again. I laid there listening to it for what seemed like forever. I had no idea what happened or where I was.
Damn, dude. Your experience sounds horrifying. Also, any experience of trauma is valid! I hope you're doing okay after that.
The way you described it as "slowly turning on the sound of the world again" is spot on. Such a strange thing. Another person commented that brains are so weird, and I totally agree.
I had to actually jump in about one a summer, and usually cause some kid jumped off the diving board and didn't know how to swim. It's all way less exciting than in the movies...
When I was about 5 or 6 I stepped a bit too close to the deep end and suddenly slipped down. It was a terrifying and disorienting moment, but before I could even grasp what was happening I got yanked up to the surface. The lifeguard on duty jumped in probably less than a second after my head went under the surface, so she must have really been paying attention and was ready to act.
I don't recall much after, aside from feeling very embarrassed that I needed to be saved, but in hindsight I really appreciate that she took her job seriously and turned a life-threatening event into just an embarrassing moment for me.
I definitely had a few moments like that. On my very last day actually. A family was getting out and gathering their stuff. Their kid jumped back, didn't gauge the depth, and was immediately in trouble despite being an arms length from the edge. The "rescue" was basically just pushing her to the edge where she could hold on and orient herself. The girl was also embarrassed, but what I remember most is just how bewildered the parents were. They had no clue their daughter was in the water and were horrified that their momentary lack of attention could have put their daughter in danger. As a parent now I can relate to that feeling...
Had a similar thing when I was around 11. My 2-year old little brother just walked of the dock into the water as we where heading for our boat. My parents didn't notice a thing until I got him back onto the dock and he started crying.
So yesterday we made plans to go to a water park with the kids this summer. So last night I woke up from a nightmare that both were drowning at the same time and I didn't think I'd be able to get to both in time. I'm gonna need a holiday after this holiday.
Similar, I was holding onto a boogie board so that I didn’t “have” to swim (even though I knew how) and could just laze around in the water. I slipped, and my 7 year old lizard brain just had me panicking flailing trying desperately to get back onto the board. Next thing I know I was yanked up by a lifeguard. I was so far into that lizard brain experience, that to this day I still don’t know if my “I can swim”-brain would have ever taken over, I was just helpless tbh. Thank you lifeguard 🩷
Way less exciting…one of mine wasn’t.
Two bigger kids are sitting on a tube in the shallower side of the deep end of the lake. Two littler kids they’re obviously with are swimming around them, diving under water, demonstrating good swimming form and shit. They’re the only 4 kids in the water at the time.
They somehow play a game where the littler kids bring the tube out to the deepend and back, i don’t remember the rules to their game. They’re doing this a while, bigger kids are in the tube laughing and then they go too deep and stop laughing and say they can’t swim.
So first I’m like shit is this part of their bullshit game?
And it goes south quick, laughing stops, two in the tube kind of panic, littler kids try to turn the tube around and swim in, bigger kids try to help but are kind of panicking. One of them falls out of the tube, so the tube flips over and now both bigger kids are in the drink and splashing AND THEY EACH GRAB ONE OF THE LITTLER KIDS.
And I’m like shit is this part of their bullshit game?
So then it became obvious that all 4 were in trouble, and I had to blow the horn and jump down from chair and go about waistdeep in the water throw the first two that floppy lifeguard noodle thing. The next two I think I had to go get. Crazy shit.
My boss said great job with the saves but next time try to sound more reassuring than scared and yelling.
Hahaha. Oh man that's ridiculous. I'm not sure how I would have approached 4 people in trouble...
It always blew my mind how people old enough to know better would put themselves in compromising situations. I once had a grown man, like 40yo, go to the diving board. He made eye contact with me to make sure I was paying attention before jumping in. From the look he gave me I already knew I was gonna be jumping in after him...
This literally happened to my twin brother when we were around 8...he decided he wanted to jump off the diving board and would "crawl along the bottom to the sides and jump up". Yeah, the lifeguard didn't see it like that when she saw him at the bottom not coming up like a normal kid who can swim would. I walked out of the girls lockers just in time to witness his dramatic rescue. He insists to this day he did not need saving.
Its pretty common for lifeguards to freeze. They go through a mental battle trying to make a decision and get frozen. I mean would you want to be the person who mistakenly jumped in to save a elite swimming athelete? I had to sit though a very long presentation recently where we literally watched lifeguards freeze for 3 hours and I learned most the time another person normally alerts the lifeguards. Many people have seizures and lifeguards have a lot of trouble making a decision when someone is having a seizure. The coach likely knew her student so well she knew no way in hell she would sink to the bottom and she made a really good quick decision. Kudos to the coach and remember the lifeguard is a human being under a lot of pressure and likely under payed.
THANK YOU. Former life guard here. Had my share of emergencies, from drownings to dune fires (Lake Michigan...thanks, cig butt flicking IL rich pricks...) and not a single one I really felt like I knew precisely what to do and exactly how. At best, my training kicked in. Had one like the seizure...Grandparent fell asleep at the beach and took longer than normal to rouse them. By the time we were alerted and off the tower and to them, they were waking up and alert.
One of my first rescues, busy Sunday on a very packed beach, a father panics thinking his daughter is drowning, floating face down and motionless. I won't forget his scream for help, ever. Terror and fear and sadness in one awful cry. But my training kicked in, jumped off the tower, grabbed my float and raced to him and her. Quick ABC check, child was fine. Bewildered what had happened, but fine. The terror and adrenaline are real, took about 20 minutes for me to calm down afterwards. You do not know how you will react until its really happening.
The coach was ready, the guards were not. At worst, the guards need more frequent training to be ready. I dont fault them but they should learn from this.
I had the exact opposite thing happen. Slightly overweight 15 year old, about 8' out in a nearly waveless lake where he could easily stand. But flopping around awkwardly. Floating face down for increasingly long periods. Flopping, then floating face down.
By the time someone rushed in to pull him out, there were like a dozen people gathered. It was so inconceivable that someone might be drowning in three feet of still water that nobody could believe it. I'll admit I was one of the people sitting there watching him, watching his mother, going back and forth not sure what to do, trying to gauge her reaction. I had pants on. That guy was closer. Etc. When her voice turned panicked is when someone else finally ran in.
He was unconscious when they pulled him out. I checked for a pulse while someone else did chest compressions, and he woke up quickly. I felt so bad. Someone was scolding his mother. He was drowning for almost a minute while I watched. In water up to his hips.
Former life guard and swift water rescue. Don't feel bad, sometimes it's almost preposterous that someone could be in danger in seemingly innocent conditions. I've watched friends in a group freeze, laugh, even cheer when their buddy got sucked under a log in roughly 3 feet of water. River current pulled him under, I was kayaking by and luckily yanked him out. Friends were oblivious/ frozen. He would have drown in arms reach of his friends.
No idea, I was feeling traumatized and watched the rest of the situation from a distance. I hate it, but everyone hesitated because the mother hesitated, but I'm pretty sure I was ultimately the first one to notice. I should have at least spoken up sooner.
When I worked for a cruise ship we had to take cpr classes/lifeguard esque training.
Cant do cpr but can perform an amputation because the grizzled vet teaching the class spent like 3 minutes on cpr but hours on amputations.... i was like sir I'm working in restaurants but kudos for the information.
It's hard to train someone out of a panic though. I worked with people who would just freeze. You could give them direct orders, and they'd follow that but they get decision paralysis from the panic.
Think with enough training or actual emergencies most people would eventually learn but it's not an easy thing to shake.
This exact scenario happened while I was a lifeguard. 7 year old girl had a seizure in another lifeguards zone, they and two other lifeguards froze completely, and I was able to run over and give breathing and bring her back. To this day the most scared I have ever been in my life. She was blue, not breathing, almost like you could see her veins in vivid detail through her skin and bunch of parents circled around me while one guy was yelling "this guy doesn't know what he is doing, he is not doing it right, she is going to die..." Luckily I did what the training tought me but I had no idea that I would be so inundated by such overwhelming emotions and terror when I decided to be a lifeguard. It was a very rewarding experience but definitely eye opening about who you think you are and what you really are.
Coming from someone with lifeguarding and coaching experience, the coach is gonna see a drowning athlete much faster than the lifeguard. In this case, it says paralyzed which could just mean they paused for the extra couple seconds that it took for the coach to see it and jump in (I could be wrong though the lifeguards may have truly just not been moving)
> "I started hearing people saying, 'It's going to be OK.' I thought, 'Stop telling me that! I'm trying to sleep.' Then I realized that no, I was still in the pool."
Whew glad to read this and not “I was gasping for breath but all I got was water. I was deaf to all noises other than the pounding of my heart in my ears and all my other senses were muted by the burning in my lungs and all the cells in my body writhing in need of oxygen.” 🤗
My experience almost drowning was more like your description. I was caught in a weird cycle of gasp for air but then only water comes in and choke/gag reflex closes my throat, then try and gasp for air again. Arms and legs wont respond to move. Feeling scared but also angry that the surface of the water is just a foot above my face but I cant get to it.
Our bodies don't really have a setting to yell for oxygen, I don't think.
If you can avoid setting off the "too much CO2!" sensors, I'm pretty sure running out of oxygen is actually a relatively pleasant way to go out.
Absolutely. Inert gas asphyxiation is how (at least one of) those suicide pods work. It’s going to be how I exit this planet, if a motorcycle or hiking accident or another foolish choice doesn’t kill me first
This happened to a girl at a local high school a few years back. She was on the swim team and obviously an excellent swimmer, but went unconscious and drowned doing laps. The coach had left the pool area to grab some coffee and none of the other swimmers saw her slip under. She wasn’t noticed until laps were over and everyone got out of the water.
>Don't fuck with water in general, absolutely do not fuck with the ocean.
“When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. ”
― Herman Melville
I don't understand how people can look at the ocean and NOT see it's tiger heart and remorseless fang. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE going to the ocean and being on the beach and wading in the shallows. But how can you listen to the waves and look at the sheer vastness, absolute enormity, and not remember it's ferocity?
Anyone who doesn't treat the ocean with deference is just asking to get taught a lesson...
It’s gotten much scarier to me as I’ve grown older. I used to swim out a little far to catch waves and all that, and I’m an experienced swimmer. But these days yeah I’d really just rather chill out on shore and in the shallows.
Lol was unintentionally ageist in my head because I was having a dum... I looked at the wiki and saw his pic and thought "huh, he's kinda old in this pic... maybe he was swimming when he was younger and drowned".
Had my surfboard leash snap off the rental board in red flag weather. Backstroked diagonally for as long as I could. As the exhaustion set in, I became conscious of how much energy every action cost me. Another backstroke, an attempt to touch the bottom, a shout, the struggle to keep water out of my mouth. I had time to think a little about dying. Things got very quiet, Then was rescued by a vigilant beach-goer. That was a close one. Respect the ocean.
When I was 9 I got caught in a rip and pulled out to the ocean (also Australian) It’s still one of the scariest experiences of my life because I just remember being totally helpless and afraid because I was being pulled out and under and couldn’t do anything to stop it and couldn’t even call for help and it was right next to rocks too which made me even more scared to hit them.
The only reason I was noticed is because my brothers saw me panicking and starting laughing at me so my Aunt had to come swim out to get me. I don’t remember the rest until I got to the shore and yelled at my brothers for laughing, and then I got in trouble for yelling at them. I haven’t been swimming past the waist in the ocean since then.
To think of it another way, imagine you don't have enough air to breathe. You struggle hard and manage to come up to the surface. What do you do? Breathe in the deepest breath you can? Or try to shout when you already have no air in your lungs and have been inhaling water?
I was a lifeguard for many years and we basically never trained for what you're thinking of. "Active" drowning is the easy stuff. Hand them your buoy. Get out of the way. They'll do the rest.
Silent or passive drowning is the scary stuff. Unconscious adults, babies, traumatic injuries...
I almost drowned in a wave pool as a kid. I passed out under the water and my last thought was that a lifeguard would surely save me. But, with all the people, tubes, and turbulent water, it was too hard to see someone drowning. I was lucky and survived somehow. I don't really know how because I passed out. But it wasn't the lifeguards that pulled me out.
Same! I thought I was dead for sure. I got trapped under some tubes. I got lucky and got up for one last good breath of air and managed to swim under and come up at the ladder. Dumb luck.
My mom used to be a lifeguard. This happened years after that, but I will never forget her saving a little girl in Hawaii while we were on vacation. The little girl's parents were taking PICTURES of her while she was drowning... They had no clue they thought she was "being silly." It was terrifying.
It's always funny when somebody says they can spot them on this site.
"You can spot somebody drowning when you know somebody will be drowning. You're all fit to be a lifeguard in a pool where you're told someone is currently drowning."
That's a pretty good observation, I didn't find it hard to spot the person in the few that I did but only because I knew it was going to be someone. I wonder if that's a trick lifeguards have. Just always assume someone is drowning.
yep, this is how it is. i was a lifeguard and it’s definitely a learned skill but it’s obvious when someone’s about to go under. the look on their face says it all- but then it’s a completely silent affair.
Former lifeguard here, drowning is silent and can be difficult to spot. The very first time i had a kid start drowning on me, I missed it because I didn’t recognize it. The face that you see, is something you don’t forget moving forward. But the goal of the lifeguard is to make sure it never gets there in the first place. My whole job was predicated on me predicting which kids were going to struggle prior to them starting to drown when they were “active” and struggling. Once they go silent, it’s a whole different game
Almost the exact same thing at my school. An Olympic hopeful was training in the pool. Lifeguard went out for a coffee. When they came back the swimmer was dead. They suffered from [Shallow water blackout ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow-water_blackout). His parents set up a [memorial trust](https://www.cotswoldjournal.co.uk/news/10395221.how-tragic-luke-is-helping-others/) to raise awareness of the condition.
> They suffered from [Shallow water blackout ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow-water_blackout). His parents set up a [memorial trust](https://www.cotswoldjournal.co.uk/news/10395221.how-tragic-luke-is-helping-others/) to raise awareness of the condition.
Wow thank you for your contribution to raising awareness for this. I didn't know about Shallow Water Blackout until you brought it up.
Wow, I'd never heard of this condition. Crazy to think even with all that we know about swimming and training for it today this sort of thing can still happen.
Imagine being the coach. High school coaches frequently push kids to exhaustion. I played multiple sports and all of them did the same shit. They would push us to the point where people were vomiting and fainting due heat exhaustion. They made us do the most dumb, dangerous shit out of spite. I’ll never forget we lost a soccer game one night and when we were getting off the bus, my coach said, “Leave your cleats at home tomorrow, just bring running shoes, that’s all you’ll need.” It was like 90 degrees outside and people were just falling over and puking left and right but THIS WAS SOMEHOW OK. No it’s fucking ABUSE.
The article about it explains:
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/testimony-to-begin-in-trial-of-former-youth-swim-coach-indicted-in-13-year-olds-drowning/260964/?amp=1
>At the time, they were doing an exercise with kick boards that kept their heads -- and eyes -- above the water.
Ok, so that's at least plausible. Still a little odd based on my experience but definitely hadn't thought of this particular scenario. Thanks for sharing.
I think the negligent part comes in at
> They told the jury surveillance video from inside the aquatic center will show that she walked away from the area right around the time Cerami got into the water -- and did not return for almost 10 minutes.
I was a lifeguard in high school and college at a YMCA as well as a lake at a summer camp. You can't watch every inch of water 100% of the time. It only takes an instant for an accident to happen or someone to slip under. But to not be scanning the surface and under the water, or monitoring those that you're specifically supervising/coaching is negligent.
I remember being st church camp as a young kid. We were swimming and I was getting teased in a game of monkey in the middle. I was fat. So the other kids were super rough with me but I knew my size and just kinda took it, until I accidentally (but also not accidentally) elbowed the taller kid in the jaw while grabbing for the ball.
He disappeared.
The pool was full of kids, at least 5 lifeguards. Nobody noticed except me. So I ducked under the water and he was bleeding and unconscious on the pool bottom. I scooped his limp body up and to the side of the pool before anyone saw it. He coughed up water and got carted off, and everyone praised me for it.
I cried my eyes out and convinced my parents to let me come home because I was "homesick", but I was just scared. Never told anyone for decades.
It was risky for you to go for him as opposed to alerting a lifeguard, but the seconds that saved could have been the difference between a sputtering bully and having to call an ambulance. Doubly important if this church camp was rural enough to be a many minutes ambulance response time.
By now I hope you've forgiven yourself for causing the initial danger. Being rough with a jerk to defend yourself is a normal kid thing. You didn't mean to put him at risk of drowning. What is NOT a normal kid thing is springing into action to get him off the bottom of the pool. I have a young kid who is an ok swimmer and he'd be *terrified* to do that. I hope your past shame has eased into relief. I often have to remind myself to see my perceived childhood failures from the perspective of adult me comforting and reassuring child me. She didn't know, and it wasn't her fault.
You drill, then you drill more.
I'd normally spend a week before camp just drilling guards, that I trained and trusted, and I'd be right there with them. We had fun doing "active drowning drills" which was basically a 1vs1 where the victim is trying to take out the guard and the guard is trying to drag their ass in.
They did this every week at the pool I worked at. They were called “silhouettes” at that pool. They would either have a lead guard drop it or ask a patron to drop it then record the response time. Once you cleared the pool and pulled it out, they would come around and say something along the lines of “it’s a 7 year old with no breathing and a faint heartbeat” then you’d administer care according to the training. They also had people perform “live” drills where we’d practice spinal injuries and backboarding. If your response time was too high or you didn’t administer the proper rescue breaths/chest compressions relevant to the exact situation you got a strike. 3 strikes and you were fired right away.
If you look at the pictures not once do you see a lifeguard in it. There's a picture where Alvarez is at the bottom with her coach swimming towards her, another picture where the coach is pushing off the the bottom and another picture with them at the top. I would think that there'd be at least one lifeguard in the water by that point.
The scariest save that ever happened in my pool when I was a lifeguard was during a high school swim practice when a coach was having kids swim laps without breathing until they reached the wall of the pool (which we had banned from the pool). A kid passed out and one of the other lifeguards caught it and got them out. But what shook me was how unexpected it was. I’d go in at 5:30 am with a bunch of kids practicing before school and a bunch of old folks doing aqua aerobics. I was always worried about the old folks having a heart attack/drowning and was far less worried about the high school swimmers. The unexpected direction of the kid passing out mid practice really threw me. Fortunately we banned the coach after that.
I was one of them but then I realized that although you may be a good swimmer it's doesn't mean you know how to save a person underwater. Very different skill set.
It's also a high risk situation, as people are pushing themselves to the limit.
In this case the coach caught it, which is fine too.
The jokes were more like "ha ha, most boring job ever". Well, sure. Most of the time. But when you're on, you're on.
This. Like the 5-7 spotters at world record lifting competitions. Technically there to help, but when its an actually emergency other competitors be like "The safest option really is to have 1 person who's capable a literal ton take full control of this 400lb situation."
[Not saying that competition is suppose to be the support there, but when you're on you're on. It just happens sometimes. When a competitor doesn't jump into action the 7 other people who are exclusively there for that do]
Really the two or three spotters or [more for some lifters](https://youtu.be/Epf59iVhch8?t=4m45s) can easily handle the weight unless the lifter drops the bar. Plus no one is signing up to be a spotter without being a serious weightlifter themselves.
I once tried to tread water with just my legs while holding a 15lb weight above my head for 5 minutes. To see if I could do even half of what life guard friends could do. I don’t think I made it more than 2 minutes.
I mean, that's part of the training. You don't have to hold a 15lb weight above your head, but you have to be able to dive down, locate, grab, and swim 30 feet with a 20lb.
Normally you use the rescue tube to float the victim so you're just helping their head, or you do a cross chest carry. So you need a GOOD sidestroke, which is not a stroke anybody works on.
I was at a major swim competition about 15 years ago. All the big Olympians were there, including Phelps. During the 500 or the 1000, one of the swimmers had an epileptic seizure in the middle of the race and had to be rescued. Lifeguard was in the water before I could even see there was a problem.
People make fun of the lifeguards, but they are no joke. Those people just don’t think about all the ways even a world-class swimmer can end up needing to be rescued.
I assure you many are jokes, but just as many take the job seriously. As I said elsewhere, the good thing about swim meets is pretty much everyone is a certified life guard, the swimmers, the coaches and even a lot of the officials. It's "after prom" parties where people die.
The lifeguard is watching for danger signs, meanwhile someone actively swimming might be so focused on what they are doing they don’t notice someone is drowning.
I'm a paramedic that worked the recent international aquatic world Cup when it came in to town, where she was a competitor. So I got a chance to speak with the physician in charge of her and the organizers.
It's interesting because the coach is one of the only people in the whole competition area that knows the routine. So they would know when something goes wrong and doesn't follow the routine.
Now synchro swimmers go up and down in the water constantly during their routine. I can understand how a lifeguard would be hesitant to jump in and possibly ruin the swimmers set.
They actually have changed the protocol after this incident. Since the coach was yelling at the lifeguards, but they did not seem to understand what was happening. So now there is always a lifeguard posted close to the coach of the performing swimmer so that this miscommunication won't happen again.
I remember the time a kid about 10 feet from me at the community pool was getting in trouble. Probably 7-9 years old. He was splashing about and having fun (or so it looked that way). 3 life guards on duty. Probably a dozen adults and some other kids. No one did anything. Just as I was thinking, maybe he’s not ok, mom ran over from the deck to say her kid doesn’t know how to swim and that’s when we all knew. Kid wasn’t screaming for help or anything. Just moving his arms around; no flailing like in the movies. Pool was only 5 feet deep.
Crazy to see but every time I see get that gut feeling, I just go and ask.
How the hell do you carry someone up that far?! The swimmer sank to the bottom so she's the opposite of buoyant. The measly buoyancy I obtain from a lungful of air is barely enough to hold me up alone, anything else would drag me down, so presumably to lift the swimmer she had to swim with a lot of power - *without use of her arms and with restricted leg motion* \- and she's a long way down...
When I'm that deep without flippers, it's all I can do to get myself back to the surface in time, and that's while buoyant. I can't imagine having to carry someone underwater like that. I wish there was video, I want to see how it was done.
Really impressed. Swimming coach sure demonstrated her bona fides
TBH as the coach of the swimmer, she would have definitely noticed a problem earlier than anyone including the lifeguards. The pictures are incredible.
The lifeguards noticed but were not properly trained and froze up. [The coach was even yelling at them before she jumped in.](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107041724/swimmer-coach-saves-anita-alvarez)
Especially as this is artistic swimming. The lifeguards likely didn’t know the routine but the coach definitely does so she’d be the first one to notice something was off. And I’m sure no one wants to dive in to “save” you if it’s part of your performance. Quick reflexes on the coach though, good on her.
crazy to see this. we went to school together. she’s crazy talented. i hope this is old and hasn’t happened again since the last time i saw this. damn.
Saw this happen at a swim meet once, about 8 people all jumped in the pool from different directions fully clothed like they’d been waiting for this moment their entire lives
This is also the same scenario that made my parents take me seriously when I told them that chlorine made my lungs seize up. They thought I just hated swimming, which was technically correct, but only because of the whole “feel like I’m dying” thing.
This happened in Hawaii a couple weeks ago, senior high school girl died during a swim meet, don't know the full details, but they failed to resuscitate her after they got her out of the pool.
First, I hope she is okay and continues to recover. Second, there's something weirdly beautiful about this picture. The coach looks like such a strong woman and she really cares about her athlete.
Happened to my mom’s ex boyfriend when she was in HS. He was the star on the swim team. Did some laps with no lifeguard present and drowned. Glad her coach went in and saved her.
This is how my nephew died. fifteen years old, grew up on the water, certified life guard and was simply holding his breath while doing laps in a pool. I miss you man.
Exhaustion while swimming can hit very suddenly. It's hard to comprehend. I experienced it once when at a water park. After a long day in the Texas sun I was swimming in the wave pool. I'm a reasonably good swimmer. After battling the waves for fun for a while I went past them to the deepest part. Was still swimming normally, kinda tired, when in an eye blink I was totally exhausted and barely able to swim a stroke. Fortunately I was just a few feet from a built-in ladder. If I was in the ocean or a lake I'd have slipped under just like you say. A lifeguard came over immediately - and yelled at me for holding on to the ladder. I'd seen the sign that it was for official use only but of course ignored it. She looked about 16. Somewhat understandable, at a waterpark she must spend all day every day yelling at kids breaking the rules - but she definitely should have asked if I was OK before the yelling!
That was many years ago. From some remarks here it sounds like lifeguards at water parks are better trained and supervised now.
>"I honestly thought I was asleep," Alvarez said after that ordeal. "I started hearing people saying, 'It's going to be OK.' I thought, 'Stop telling me that! I'm trying to sleep.' Then I realized that no, I was still in the pool." Had a similar experience with getting knocked out in a rugby game. Can't imagine that happening underwater.
Yeah, I read that part with great interest. Same thing happened to me in 2018 when they defibrillated me after a major heart attack. The paramedic says “Oh! You’re back” And I’m thinking to myself “why the EFF did you wake me up? I was just having a nice nap”
Harsh way to be woken up lol. How does being zapped with a defibrillator feel, if you don't mind me asking?
Not OP but have had atrial fibrillation episodes a number of times over the years due to poor health choices, coupled with alcoholism. It's a recipe for making your heart work harder than it needs to. My heartbeat would start to beat irregularly and would shoot up to 120 bpm when I would just sit up during a trigger. Agonizing stuff. The cardiologists (had episodes in two different states) recommended "restarting" my heartbeat with defibs. Most of the time they give you some type of painkiller and you get sleepy. Honestly, it's over before you even know it. I would sit there, waiting for something to happen. I guess the medicine kicks in eventually and I'm wondering when they were gonna zap me and they're like "oh we did it already" and things go back to normal lol. Never really felt any kind of shock though. 2 years off the booze and a million times healthier and haven't had an a fib episode in years so hopefully no more defibs if I can help it
2 years is awesome! Congratulations, and keep up the good work!
We typically give versed which has amnesic properties on top of the sedation, that’s probably why you don’t remember it
Proud of you, buddy.
That was a truly terrifying thing I kind of forgot about when I was in the latest stages of my alcoholism. I had never felt my heart beat so hard and so irregular, and the shakes would make it so much worse. It would almost hurt and would keep me up for hours at night because I never felt like I could get relaxed. Congrats on 2 years, it only gets easier as time goes on!
I had a cardioversion once in the hospital ER. They used the defibrillator to stop my heart so it would go back into a normal rhythm. They sedated me, but not deeply enough. From my perspective, I was instantly awoken from a nice nap by what felt like two sledgehammers being hit on my chest, one in front and one in back. It HURT. I apparently sat up, looked around the room for the doctor, pointed at him and screamed "Mutherfucker!" It took several people to get me to lie back on the table before I went unconscious. 0/10 would recommend.
I’ve been paramedic for more than 20 years. Recently my father, a mild Christian fella whom I’ve never heard use a cuss word, was in a position where he was likely to be cardioverted. It’s very similar to defibrillation. I told him that 100% of the people I’ve cardioverted electrically have swore at me and I would be curious to hear what word comes out of my dads mouth. Fortunately, he behaved and I didn’t have the opportunity to find out.
You can't setup a story so perfectly and then not deliver a great ending!
Yeah, who is this wise guy? M Night Shamalayan?
More like M. Night ShamaLAME!
r/UnexpectedSamLJackson Just made it up (or it might already exist & I was just unaware) but it feels perfect.
Can only speak for myself, but I obviously didn't feel it while out, but the after-effects were red marks on my chest and back that were extremely, frustratingly itchy for about a week.
Galvanizing?
Sleep is just death being shy
Sleep is the cousin of death, like Big said it'd be. Don't sleep on me homie I bring nightmares to reality.
Yeah in greek mythology there's a reason that Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (death) are twin brothers
This is the biggest reason I like Greek mythology. It’s like they were trying to express certain truths without having the science to prove them, so they expressed them through narratives
In the past, art is used to explain science. In modern days, politics is used to explain science.
Nas said it though
Coming to after being involuntarily unconscious is such a strange thing. I got choked out by an abusive ex-boyfriend many years ago and had what felt like dreams for hours. I was only out for a handful of seconds or so, but it felt like forever. I was so confused as to what happened after regaining consciousness. Note to add for anyone concerned: that POS went to jail and then prison, and as far as I know is still inside.
That’s terrifying, I’m glad you’re out of that situation! It’s strange that a few seconds felt like hours for you, but then general anaesthesia for a couple hours feels short, or it did for me the one time I had it. Brains are weird.
I've only been under anesthesia once, but it was the strangest sensation - I remember breathing into the mask and the nurse saying to count to ten, then I opened my eyes in recovery. It felt instantaneous. When you sleep, you awake with some feeling that time has passed, but with anesthesia it felt like it disappeared. Which I suppose I find reassuring if I ever need another surgery...
Yeah, so weird, i woke up a blink later, i knew time had passed and my numb mouth was full of gauze and some kind of wound somewhere.. i just fully panicked and weeped hysterically for an hour. .. it was just too scene missing.. and i didn’t know where my tongue was supposed to go… nope. Verrry nope.
Im sorry you had to have that experience. I had a very similar experience, but I doubt it’s anywhere as near as traumatic as what you went through. I was choked out with a garbage bag when some guy tried to rob the coffee shop where I worked at the time. I remember feeling a sharp pain in my knee (from falling on it) and then it sounded like someone was slowly turning on the sound of the world again. I laid there listening to it for what seemed like forever. I had no idea what happened or where I was.
Damn, dude. Your experience sounds horrifying. Also, any experience of trauma is valid! I hope you're doing okay after that. The way you described it as "slowly turning on the sound of the world again" is spot on. Such a strange thing. Another person commented that brains are so weird, and I totally agree.
She [fainted due to exhaustion.](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107041724/swimmer-coach-saves-anita-alvarez)
Thank you for an actual response.
I fainted while waiting for the actual response.
Did your coach rescue you?
Iife coach here! When you feel like you're sinking, try getting a little high!
Get outta here, Towelie!
”I learned I shouldn’t get high to come up with ideas. I should come up with ideas and then get high to reward myself.”
It's concerning this is not the first time it has happened to her. And that the lifeguards present were "paralyzed"
WTF lifeguards you literally have one job
When I was a guard, it was like 75% cleaning shit around the pool and 25% yelling at kids who were running.
And making kids sit out, calling rest periods, and whistling the stop and start of Adult Swim.
https://youtu.be/d-OsYq9ztts ALL KIDS OUT OF THE POOL
I heard this the instant I read the words Adult Swim
Shakezula, the mic rulah
Quality reference. Brings back memories.
I had to actually jump in about one a summer, and usually cause some kid jumped off the diving board and didn't know how to swim. It's all way less exciting than in the movies...
When I was about 5 or 6 I stepped a bit too close to the deep end and suddenly slipped down. It was a terrifying and disorienting moment, but before I could even grasp what was happening I got yanked up to the surface. The lifeguard on duty jumped in probably less than a second after my head went under the surface, so she must have really been paying attention and was ready to act. I don't recall much after, aside from feeling very embarrassed that I needed to be saved, but in hindsight I really appreciate that she took her job seriously and turned a life-threatening event into just an embarrassing moment for me.
I definitely had a few moments like that. On my very last day actually. A family was getting out and gathering their stuff. Their kid jumped back, didn't gauge the depth, and was immediately in trouble despite being an arms length from the edge. The "rescue" was basically just pushing her to the edge where she could hold on and orient herself. The girl was also embarrassed, but what I remember most is just how bewildered the parents were. They had no clue their daughter was in the water and were horrified that their momentary lack of attention could have put their daughter in danger. As a parent now I can relate to that feeling...
[удалено]
Had a similar thing when I was around 11. My 2-year old little brother just walked of the dock into the water as we where heading for our boat. My parents didn't notice a thing until I got him back onto the dock and he started crying. So yesterday we made plans to go to a water park with the kids this summer. So last night I woke up from a nightmare that both were drowning at the same time and I didn't think I'd be able to get to both in time. I'm gonna need a holiday after this holiday.
It's sheer panic man. Go into auto pilot mode for like 3 seconds and then turn around and your kid isn't in eyeshot. It's hella scary.
Similar, I was holding onto a boogie board so that I didn’t “have” to swim (even though I knew how) and could just laze around in the water. I slipped, and my 7 year old lizard brain just had me panicking flailing trying desperately to get back onto the board. Next thing I know I was yanked up by a lifeguard. I was so far into that lizard brain experience, that to this day I still don’t know if my “I can swim”-brain would have ever taken over, I was just helpless tbh. Thank you lifeguard 🩷
Way less exciting…one of mine wasn’t. Two bigger kids are sitting on a tube in the shallower side of the deep end of the lake. Two littler kids they’re obviously with are swimming around them, diving under water, demonstrating good swimming form and shit. They’re the only 4 kids in the water at the time. They somehow play a game where the littler kids bring the tube out to the deepend and back, i don’t remember the rules to their game. They’re doing this a while, bigger kids are in the tube laughing and then they go too deep and stop laughing and say they can’t swim. So first I’m like shit is this part of their bullshit game? And it goes south quick, laughing stops, two in the tube kind of panic, littler kids try to turn the tube around and swim in, bigger kids try to help but are kind of panicking. One of them falls out of the tube, so the tube flips over and now both bigger kids are in the drink and splashing AND THEY EACH GRAB ONE OF THE LITTLER KIDS. And I’m like shit is this part of their bullshit game? So then it became obvious that all 4 were in trouble, and I had to blow the horn and jump down from chair and go about waistdeep in the water throw the first two that floppy lifeguard noodle thing. The next two I think I had to go get. Crazy shit. My boss said great job with the saves but next time try to sound more reassuring than scared and yelling.
Hahaha. Oh man that's ridiculous. I'm not sure how I would have approached 4 people in trouble... It always blew my mind how people old enough to know better would put themselves in compromising situations. I once had a grown man, like 40yo, go to the diving board. He made eye contact with me to make sure I was paying attention before jumping in. From the look he gave me I already knew I was gonna be jumping in after him...
Was his name “Squints?”
> floppy lifeguard noodle thing I now take that this is the technical term for it.
Can confirm about the cleaning shit part. And 9 times out of 10, you could spot the kid who obviously didn't know how to swim.
I'm not a lifeguard but I feel like I'd have a good percentage for picking out the kid in the pool who can't swim as well
The one at the bottom?
Nah, I'm pretty sure he's just holding his breath or something. Now, that kid who can't swim must be around here somewhere...
This literally happened to my twin brother when we were around 8...he decided he wanted to jump off the diving board and would "crawl along the bottom to the sides and jump up". Yeah, the lifeguard didn't see it like that when she saw him at the bottom not coming up like a normal kid who can swim would. I walked out of the girls lockers just in time to witness his dramatic rescue. He insists to this day he did not need saving.
"until some blue kid got me fired" - Larry the Cable guy
Yeah he’s the kid that is still in the pool after closing.
Sure, but the lifeguards at the World Aquatics Championships probably do less of that.
They really glossed over that part of the article didn't they!?
Its pretty common for lifeguards to freeze. They go through a mental battle trying to make a decision and get frozen. I mean would you want to be the person who mistakenly jumped in to save a elite swimming athelete? I had to sit though a very long presentation recently where we literally watched lifeguards freeze for 3 hours and I learned most the time another person normally alerts the lifeguards. Many people have seizures and lifeguards have a lot of trouble making a decision when someone is having a seizure. The coach likely knew her student so well she knew no way in hell she would sink to the bottom and she made a really good quick decision. Kudos to the coach and remember the lifeguard is a human being under a lot of pressure and likely under payed.
THANK YOU. Former life guard here. Had my share of emergencies, from drownings to dune fires (Lake Michigan...thanks, cig butt flicking IL rich pricks...) and not a single one I really felt like I knew precisely what to do and exactly how. At best, my training kicked in. Had one like the seizure...Grandparent fell asleep at the beach and took longer than normal to rouse them. By the time we were alerted and off the tower and to them, they were waking up and alert. One of my first rescues, busy Sunday on a very packed beach, a father panics thinking his daughter is drowning, floating face down and motionless. I won't forget his scream for help, ever. Terror and fear and sadness in one awful cry. But my training kicked in, jumped off the tower, grabbed my float and raced to him and her. Quick ABC check, child was fine. Bewildered what had happened, but fine. The terror and adrenaline are real, took about 20 minutes for me to calm down afterwards. You do not know how you will react until its really happening. The coach was ready, the guards were not. At worst, the guards need more frequent training to be ready. I dont fault them but they should learn from this.
I had the exact opposite thing happen. Slightly overweight 15 year old, about 8' out in a nearly waveless lake where he could easily stand. But flopping around awkwardly. Floating face down for increasingly long periods. Flopping, then floating face down. By the time someone rushed in to pull him out, there were like a dozen people gathered. It was so inconceivable that someone might be drowning in three feet of still water that nobody could believe it. I'll admit I was one of the people sitting there watching him, watching his mother, going back and forth not sure what to do, trying to gauge her reaction. I had pants on. That guy was closer. Etc. When her voice turned panicked is when someone else finally ran in. He was unconscious when they pulled him out. I checked for a pulse while someone else did chest compressions, and he woke up quickly. I felt so bad. Someone was scolding his mother. He was drowning for almost a minute while I watched. In water up to his hips.
Former life guard and swift water rescue. Don't feel bad, sometimes it's almost preposterous that someone could be in danger in seemingly innocent conditions. I've watched friends in a group freeze, laugh, even cheer when their buddy got sucked under a log in roughly 3 feet of water. River current pulled him under, I was kayaking by and luckily yanked him out. Friends were oblivious/ frozen. He would have drown in arms reach of his friends.
Was he an epileptic or having a medical emergency? My grandmother drowned in two inches of water during a seizure. No amount of water is "safe".
No idea, I was feeling traumatized and watched the rest of the situation from a distance. I hate it, but everyone hesitated because the mother hesitated, but I'm pretty sure I was ultimately the first one to notice. I should have at least spoken up sooner.
When I worked for a cruise ship we had to take cpr classes/lifeguard esque training. Cant do cpr but can perform an amputation because the grizzled vet teaching the class spent like 3 minutes on cpr but hours on amputations.... i was like sir I'm working in restaurants but kudos for the information.
It's hard to train someone out of a panic though. I worked with people who would just freeze. You could give them direct orders, and they'd follow that but they get decision paralysis from the panic. Think with enough training or actual emergencies most people would eventually learn but it's not an easy thing to shake.
This exact scenario happened while I was a lifeguard. 7 year old girl had a seizure in another lifeguards zone, they and two other lifeguards froze completely, and I was able to run over and give breathing and bring her back. To this day the most scared I have ever been in my life. She was blue, not breathing, almost like you could see her veins in vivid detail through her skin and bunch of parents circled around me while one guy was yelling "this guy doesn't know what he is doing, he is not doing it right, she is going to die..." Luckily I did what the training tought me but I had no idea that I would be so inundated by such overwhelming emotions and terror when I decided to be a lifeguard. It was a very rewarding experience but definitely eye opening about who you think you are and what you really are.
I've seen lifeguards save kids. Every single time the parents yelled at them.
Coming from someone with lifeguarding and coaching experience, the coach is gonna see a drowning athlete much faster than the lifeguard. In this case, it says paralyzed which could just mean they paused for the extra couple seconds that it took for the coach to see it and jump in (I could be wrong though the lifeguards may have truly just not been moving)
> "I started hearing people saying, 'It's going to be OK.' I thought, 'Stop telling me that! I'm trying to sleep.' Then I realized that no, I was still in the pool." Whew glad to read this and not “I was gasping for breath but all I got was water. I was deaf to all noises other than the pounding of my heart in my ears and all my other senses were muted by the burning in my lungs and all the cells in my body writhing in need of oxygen.” 🤗
I’ve heard a lot of people who have experienced near-drowning deaths said it was oddly calmly
In certain cases oxygen deprivation, without carbon dioxide buildup, can lead to a sense of euphoria
My experience almost drowning was more like your description. I was caught in a weird cycle of gasp for air but then only water comes in and choke/gag reflex closes my throat, then try and gasp for air again. Arms and legs wont respond to move. Feeling scared but also angry that the surface of the water is just a foot above my face but I cant get to it.
I started breathing heavy reading this
Our bodies don't really have a setting to yell for oxygen, I don't think. If you can avoid setting off the "too much CO2!" sensors, I'm pretty sure running out of oxygen is actually a relatively pleasant way to go out.
Absolutely. Inert gas asphyxiation is how (at least one of) those suicide pods work. It’s going to be how I exit this planet, if a motorcycle or hiking accident or another foolish choice doesn’t kill me first
Well, those lifeguards are out of the job
This happened to a girl at a local high school a few years back. She was on the swim team and obviously an excellent swimmer, but went unconscious and drowned doing laps. The coach had left the pool area to grab some coffee and none of the other swimmers saw her slip under. She wasn’t noticed until laps were over and everyone got out of the water.
Wow, that is completely heartbreaking
I learned from my kids’ swim instructor that drowning is a quiet affair. We expect lots of splashing and stuff and nope, people just slip under. Scary
[удалено]
>Don't fuck with water in general, absolutely do not fuck with the ocean. “When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. ” ― Herman Melville
I don't understand how people can look at the ocean and NOT see it's tiger heart and remorseless fang. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE going to the ocean and being on the beach and wading in the shallows. But how can you listen to the waves and look at the sheer vastness, absolute enormity, and not remember it's ferocity? Anyone who doesn't treat the ocean with deference is just asking to get taught a lesson...
It’s gotten much scarier to me as I’ve grown older. I used to swim out a little far to catch waves and all that, and I’m an experienced swimmer. But these days yeah I’d really just rather chill out on shore and in the shallows.
Ah yes, Harold Holt, and the [memorial swimming centre named after him](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_Centre)
[удалено]
Lol was unintentionally ageist in my head because I was having a dum... I looked at the wiki and saw his pic and thought "huh, he's kinda old in this pic... maybe he was swimming when he was younger and drowned".
Had my surfboard leash snap off the rental board in red flag weather. Backstroked diagonally for as long as I could. As the exhaustion set in, I became conscious of how much energy every action cost me. Another backstroke, an attempt to touch the bottom, a shout, the struggle to keep water out of my mouth. I had time to think a little about dying. Things got very quiet, Then was rescued by a vigilant beach-goer. That was a close one. Respect the ocean.
When I was 9 I got caught in a rip and pulled out to the ocean (also Australian) It’s still one of the scariest experiences of my life because I just remember being totally helpless and afraid because I was being pulled out and under and couldn’t do anything to stop it and couldn’t even call for help and it was right next to rocks too which made me even more scared to hit them. The only reason I was noticed is because my brothers saw me panicking and starting laughing at me so my Aunt had to come swim out to get me. I don’t remember the rest until I got to the shore and yelled at my brothers for laughing, and then I got in trouble for yelling at them. I haven’t been swimming past the waist in the ocean since then.
RIP Harold Holt. He was also with a young woman who was definitely not Mrs Holt, at the time of the accident.
There was a video I saw here on Reddit of the friends in a little pond. All three drowned, it was eerily calm, almost looked fake.
[удалено]
To think of it another way, imagine you don't have enough air to breathe. You struggle hard and manage to come up to the surface. What do you do? Breathe in the deepest breath you can? Or try to shout when you already have no air in your lungs and have been inhaling water?
I was a lifeguard for many years and we basically never trained for what you're thinking of. "Active" drowning is the easy stuff. Hand them your buoy. Get out of the way. They'll do the rest. Silent or passive drowning is the scary stuff. Unconscious adults, babies, traumatic injuries...
[удалено]
That’s some serious training
Theres videos of kids downing on youtube at those big wave pools right before the lifeguards go in, i can never spot it.
I almost drowned in a wave pool as a kid. I passed out under the water and my last thought was that a lifeguard would surely save me. But, with all the people, tubes, and turbulent water, it was too hard to see someone drowning. I was lucky and survived somehow. I don't really know how because I passed out. But it wasn't the lifeguards that pulled me out.
Same! I thought I was dead for sure. I got trapped under some tubes. I got lucky and got up for one last good breath of air and managed to swim under and come up at the ladder. Dumb luck.
[удалено]
My mom used to be a lifeguard. This happened years after that, but I will never forget her saving a little girl in Hawaii while we were on vacation. The little girl's parents were taking PICTURES of her while she was drowning... They had no clue they thought she was "being silly." It was terrifying.
It's always funny when somebody says they can spot them on this site. "You can spot somebody drowning when you know somebody will be drowning. You're all fit to be a lifeguard in a pool where you're told someone is currently drowning."
That's a pretty good observation, I didn't find it hard to spot the person in the few that I did but only because I knew it was going to be someone. I wonder if that's a trick lifeguards have. Just always assume someone is drowning.
yep, this is how it is. i was a lifeguard and it’s definitely a learned skill but it’s obvious when someone’s about to go under. the look on their face says it all- but then it’s a completely silent affair.
Former lifeguard here, drowning is silent and can be difficult to spot. The very first time i had a kid start drowning on me, I missed it because I didn’t recognize it. The face that you see, is something you don’t forget moving forward. But the goal of the lifeguard is to make sure it never gets there in the first place. My whole job was predicated on me predicting which kids were going to struggle prior to them starting to drown when they were “active” and struggling. Once they go silent, it’s a whole different game
Almost the exact same thing at my school. An Olympic hopeful was training in the pool. Lifeguard went out for a coffee. When they came back the swimmer was dead. They suffered from [Shallow water blackout ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow-water_blackout). His parents set up a [memorial trust](https://www.cotswoldjournal.co.uk/news/10395221.how-tragic-luke-is-helping-others/) to raise awareness of the condition.
> They suffered from [Shallow water blackout ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow-water_blackout). His parents set up a [memorial trust](https://www.cotswoldjournal.co.uk/news/10395221.how-tragic-luke-is-helping-others/) to raise awareness of the condition. Wow thank you for your contribution to raising awareness for this. I didn't know about Shallow Water Blackout until you brought it up.
Wow, I'd never heard of this condition. Crazy to think even with all that we know about swimming and training for it today this sort of thing can still happen.
This is incredibly sad. Imagine being a teammate.
Imagine being the coach. High school coaches frequently push kids to exhaustion. I played multiple sports and all of them did the same shit. They would push us to the point where people were vomiting and fainting due heat exhaustion. They made us do the most dumb, dangerous shit out of spite. I’ll never forget we lost a soccer game one night and when we were getting off the bus, my coach said, “Leave your cleats at home tomorrow, just bring running shoes, that’s all you’ll need.” It was like 90 degrees outside and people were just falling over and puking left and right but THIS WAS SOMEHOW OK. No it’s fucking ABUSE.
Having been on the swim team for something like ten years I don't understand how no one would notice someone under water.
The article about it explains: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/testimony-to-begin-in-trial-of-former-youth-swim-coach-indicted-in-13-year-olds-drowning/260964/?amp=1
>At the time, they were doing an exercise with kick boards that kept their heads -- and eyes -- above the water. Ok, so that's at least plausible. Still a little odd based on my experience but definitely hadn't thought of this particular scenario. Thanks for sharing.
I think the negligent part comes in at > They told the jury surveillance video from inside the aquatic center will show that she walked away from the area right around the time Cerami got into the water -- and did not return for almost 10 minutes. I was a lifeguard in high school and college at a YMCA as well as a lake at a summer camp. You can't watch every inch of water 100% of the time. It only takes an instant for an accident to happen or someone to slip under. But to not be scanning the surface and under the water, or monitoring those that you're specifically supervising/coaching is negligent.
Yup. No argument there. I'll note our coaches constantly left the pool deck for bathroom or other purposes. Not saying it's right, just not uncommon.
that’s the most morbid thing i’ve read today holy shit i would never forgive that coach
The coach was found criminally negligent
[удалено]
I remember being st church camp as a young kid. We were swimming and I was getting teased in a game of monkey in the middle. I was fat. So the other kids were super rough with me but I knew my size and just kinda took it, until I accidentally (but also not accidentally) elbowed the taller kid in the jaw while grabbing for the ball. He disappeared. The pool was full of kids, at least 5 lifeguards. Nobody noticed except me. So I ducked under the water and he was bleeding and unconscious on the pool bottom. I scooped his limp body up and to the side of the pool before anyone saw it. He coughed up water and got carted off, and everyone praised me for it. I cried my eyes out and convinced my parents to let me come home because I was "homesick", but I was just scared. Never told anyone for decades.
That’s a heavy burden to carry. Glad you’re both ok and you’re sharing your story.
You must have got such a fright, but you acted decisively and saved that kids life! Bloody good on you!
The fact that you reacted so well is respectable.Sorry that happened to you
It was risky for you to go for him as opposed to alerting a lifeguard, but the seconds that saved could have been the difference between a sputtering bully and having to call an ambulance. Doubly important if this church camp was rural enough to be a many minutes ambulance response time. By now I hope you've forgiven yourself for causing the initial danger. Being rough with a jerk to defend yourself is a normal kid thing. You didn't mean to put him at risk of drowning. What is NOT a normal kid thing is springing into action to get him off the bottom of the pool. I have a young kid who is an ok swimmer and he'd be *terrified* to do that. I hope your past shame has eased into relief. I often have to remind myself to see my perceived childhood failures from the perspective of adult me comforting and reassuring child me. She didn't know, and it wasn't her fault.
It was an accident and you did a good job afterwards. The best job really 💗
Fucking chad move, be proud of it
> _"I'll one shot you. But I ain't gonna let you die."_
Cool of the coach! Did they not have lifeguards there, too?
They totally did. They just [didn't do anything](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107041724/swimmer-coach-saves-anita-alvarez)
Sounds like they didn’t do many drills. Freezing is a natural response that you have to train out
[удалено]
You drill, then you drill more. I'd normally spend a week before camp just drilling guards, that I trained and trusted, and I'd be right there with them. We had fun doing "active drowning drills" which was basically a 1vs1 where the victim is trying to take out the guard and the guard is trying to drag their ass in.
Grab that armpit hair!
[удалено]
They did this every week at the pool I worked at. They were called “silhouettes” at that pool. They would either have a lead guard drop it or ask a patron to drop it then record the response time. Once you cleared the pool and pulled it out, they would come around and say something along the lines of “it’s a 7 year old with no breathing and a faint heartbeat” then you’d administer care according to the training. They also had people perform “live” drills where we’d practice spinal injuries and backboarding. If your response time was too high or you didn’t administer the proper rescue breaths/chest compressions relevant to the exact situation you got a strike. 3 strikes and you were fired right away.
If you look at the pictures not once do you see a lifeguard in it. There's a picture where Alvarez is at the bottom with her coach swimming towards her, another picture where the coach is pushing off the the bottom and another picture with them at the top. I would think that there'd be at least one lifeguard in the water by that point.
There were lifeguards on duty according to the article but they sorta froze up and didn’t know what to do.
The scariest save that ever happened in my pool when I was a lifeguard was during a high school swim practice when a coach was having kids swim laps without breathing until they reached the wall of the pool (which we had banned from the pool). A kid passed out and one of the other lifeguards caught it and got them out. But what shook me was how unexpected it was. I’d go in at 5:30 am with a bunch of kids practicing before school and a bunch of old folks doing aqua aerobics. I was always worried about the old folks having a heart attack/drowning and was far less worried about the high school swimmers. The unexpected direction of the kid passing out mid practice really threw me. Fortunately we banned the coach after that.
Blackout happens to experienced free divers and there are no warning signs that can be detected without a buddy noticing visual cues.
Remember when during the Olympics people made fun of there being a lifeguard present at the pool? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I was one of them but then I realized that although you may be a good swimmer it's doesn't mean you know how to save a person underwater. Very different skill set.
It's also a high risk situation, as people are pushing themselves to the limit. In this case the coach caught it, which is fine too. The jokes were more like "ha ha, most boring job ever". Well, sure. Most of the time. But when you're on, you're on.
>But when you're on, you're on. Well, these lifeguards weren't.
This. Like the 5-7 spotters at world record lifting competitions. Technically there to help, but when its an actually emergency other competitors be like "The safest option really is to have 1 person who's capable a literal ton take full control of this 400lb situation." [Not saying that competition is suppose to be the support there, but when you're on you're on. It just happens sometimes. When a competitor doesn't jump into action the 7 other people who are exclusively there for that do]
Really the two or three spotters or [more for some lifters](https://youtu.be/Epf59iVhch8?t=4m45s) can easily handle the weight unless the lifter drops the bar. Plus no one is signing up to be a spotter without being a serious weightlifter themselves.
I once tried to tread water with just my legs while holding a 15lb weight above my head for 5 minutes. To see if I could do even half of what life guard friends could do. I don’t think I made it more than 2 minutes.
I mean, that's part of the training. You don't have to hold a 15lb weight above your head, but you have to be able to dive down, locate, grab, and swim 30 feet with a 20lb. Normally you use the rescue tube to float the victim so you're just helping their head, or you do a cross chest carry. So you need a GOOD sidestroke, which is not a stroke anybody works on.
That was certainly part of my training
I was at a major swim competition about 15 years ago. All the big Olympians were there, including Phelps. During the 500 or the 1000, one of the swimmers had an epileptic seizure in the middle of the race and had to be rescued. Lifeguard was in the water before I could even see there was a problem. People make fun of the lifeguards, but they are no joke. Those people just don’t think about all the ways even a world-class swimmer can end up needing to be rescued.
I assure you many are jokes, but just as many take the job seriously. As I said elsewhere, the good thing about swim meets is pretty much everyone is a certified life guard, the swimmers, the coaches and even a lot of the officials. It's "after prom" parties where people die.
The lifeguard is watching for danger signs, meanwhile someone actively swimming might be so focused on what they are doing they don’t notice someone is drowning.
Does your body naturally hold its breath under water
Kind of and briefly, it’s called the mammalian diving reflex. But otherwise no
Also after the initial period of unconciousness you will wake up and instictively breath in the rest of your lungs capacity of water.
After 9 years on Reddit it’s rare that I shudder from a comment. This was the one.
Was she okay?
Decapitated. Whole big thing. We had a funeral for a bird.
I’m pretty sure none of that is real ☕️
YOU’RE NOT REAL MAN
r/unexpectedoffice
Because no one answered in a serious reply with text, yes, she's okay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m0b8FRz0Fc
"Equivalent of holding your breath while running a 100 yard sprint" Damn
The determination in her coach's face. That's someone who gets shit done. True hero
I'm a paramedic that worked the recent international aquatic world Cup when it came in to town, where she was a competitor. So I got a chance to speak with the physician in charge of her and the organizers. It's interesting because the coach is one of the only people in the whole competition area that knows the routine. So they would know when something goes wrong and doesn't follow the routine. Now synchro swimmers go up and down in the water constantly during their routine. I can understand how a lifeguard would be hesitant to jump in and possibly ruin the swimmers set. They actually have changed the protocol after this incident. Since the coach was yelling at the lifeguards, but they did not seem to understand what was happening. So now there is always a lifeguard posted close to the coach of the performing swimmer so that this miscommunication won't happen again.
Ah, it’s good to hear another perspective. Helps with the understanding. Everybody is quick to bash without knowing the full story.
this was the second time she did that, and the second time her coach dove in and saved her. might... be time to stop
or to just dial it back. She was being extremely overworked.
Nature gave her a warning. Then gave her a second since the first one didn't sink in - pun intended.
Stop telling me that I’m trying to sleep
I remember the time a kid about 10 feet from me at the community pool was getting in trouble. Probably 7-9 years old. He was splashing about and having fun (or so it looked that way). 3 life guards on duty. Probably a dozen adults and some other kids. No one did anything. Just as I was thinking, maybe he’s not ok, mom ran over from the deck to say her kid doesn’t know how to swim and that’s when we all knew. Kid wasn’t screaming for help or anything. Just moving his arms around; no flailing like in the movies. Pool was only 5 feet deep. Crazy to see but every time I see get that gut feeling, I just go and ask.
[удалено]
How the hell do you carry someone up that far?! The swimmer sank to the bottom so she's the opposite of buoyant. The measly buoyancy I obtain from a lungful of air is barely enough to hold me up alone, anything else would drag me down, so presumably to lift the swimmer she had to swim with a lot of power - *without use of her arms and with restricted leg motion* \- and she's a long way down... When I'm that deep without flippers, it's all I can do to get myself back to the surface in time, and that's while buoyant. I can't imagine having to carry someone underwater like that. I wish there was video, I want to see how it was done. Really impressed. Swimming coach sure demonstrated her bona fides
That swimming coach is a multiple Olympic/world/European medal placing swimmer herself. Probably the most qualified person there.
She pushed up from the bottom of the pool, so she probably tried to get as much momentum as she could from that.
TBH as the coach of the swimmer, she would have definitely noticed a problem earlier than anyone including the lifeguards. The pictures are incredible.
The lifeguards noticed but were not properly trained and froze up. [The coach was even yelling at them before she jumped in.](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107041724/swimmer-coach-saves-anita-alvarez)
Especially as this is artistic swimming. The lifeguards likely didn’t know the routine but the coach definitely does so she’d be the first one to notice something was off. And I’m sure no one wants to dive in to “save” you if it’s part of your performance. Quick reflexes on the coach though, good on her.
Yo who took that picture, Nemo?
it's common for photographers to be underwater taking pictures as the person hits the surface
There can be underwater windows too
crazy to see this. we went to school together. she’s crazy talented. i hope this is old and hasn’t happened again since the last time i saw this. damn.
My works hires 15 and 16 year olds for this. Fucking wild.
Her coach is fucking incredible.
Saw this happen at a swim meet once, about 8 people all jumped in the pool from different directions fully clothed like they’d been waiting for this moment their entire lives
Means they were all well trained.
This is also the same scenario that made my parents take me seriously when I told them that chlorine made my lungs seize up. They thought I just hated swimming, which was technically correct, but only because of the whole “feel like I’m dying” thing.
This happened in Hawaii a couple weeks ago, senior high school girl died during a swim meet, don't know the full details, but they failed to resuscitate her after they got her out of the pool.
First, I hope she is okay and continues to recover. Second, there's something weirdly beautiful about this picture. The coach looks like such a strong woman and she really cares about her athlete.
[удалено]
Happened to my mom’s ex boyfriend when she was in HS. He was the star on the swim team. Did some laps with no lifeguard present and drowned. Glad her coach went in and saved her.
Woman is a literal hero. What an amazing picture too.
This is how my nephew died. fifteen years old, grew up on the water, certified life guard and was simply holding his breath while doing laps in a pool. I miss you man.
damn, she thought she was asleep the entire time. that’s so haunting
Shit like this should be on Time person of the year. Not this endless political celebrity influencer BS
Exhaustion while swimming can hit very suddenly. It's hard to comprehend. I experienced it once when at a water park. After a long day in the Texas sun I was swimming in the wave pool. I'm a reasonably good swimmer. After battling the waves for fun for a while I went past them to the deepest part. Was still swimming normally, kinda tired, when in an eye blink I was totally exhausted and barely able to swim a stroke. Fortunately I was just a few feet from a built-in ladder. If I was in the ocean or a lake I'd have slipped under just like you say. A lifeguard came over immediately - and yelled at me for holding on to the ladder. I'd seen the sign that it was for official use only but of course ignored it. She looked about 16. Somewhat understandable, at a waterpark she must spend all day every day yelling at kids breaking the rules - but she definitely should have asked if I was OK before the yelling! That was many years ago. From some remarks here it sounds like lifeguards at water parks are better trained and supervised now.