Inhale more air, sit on the bottom and exhale slowly...
When did man learn to swim? Of course, long before he became human. The ability to float on water, buoyancy, is characteristic of a living body.
You can check this yourself. When you swim, stand close to the shore and, taking a deep breath, sink to the bottom, wrap your hands around your knees, you will immediately feel the water pushing you out. Don't resist and you will float to the surface. This exercise - the “barrel” - is always shown to beginners so that they understand how well water holds a person.
Why does the water hold? Why can a person swim or even just lie on the water without moving? You will find the answer by remembering Archimedes' law, which you took in physics.
It turns out that a person cannot drown? But then why does this still happen sometimes, you ask.
Here's why. Indeed, unlike the “body immersed in water”, which is spoken of in Archimedes’ law, man is a living body. Every minute we take sixteen inhalations and exhalations, that is, we change the volume of our chest sixteen times, and the volume of water we displace changes sixteen times per minute. In addition, the upper part of our body is lighter than the lower, and our legs gradually sink, so a person must make movements in order to stay balanced on the water.
If people sometimes drown, it happens because, confused, they not only do not make the correct, necessary movements, but, on the contrary, flounder, randomly dangling their arms and legs, and, without noticing it, prevent their body from staying on the water.
Spread your arms, lie on your back in the water, moving your legs slightly - you will feel how the water supports you.
Inhale and push off from the bottom, the water will support you.
It is easier to lie motionless in the water on your back than on your chest: it is easier to breathe in this position because your mouth and nose are on top. This is how swimmers usually rest on their backs.
Swimmers marathon
It is not difficult for a skilled swimmer to stay on the water for many hours in a row. Domestic swimmers often organized marathon swims over enormous distances: in the Black Sea - fifty to sixty kilometers, along the Volga - two hundred.
International marathon swims most often took place in the English Channel. This is a very difficult track. The width of the strait at its narrowest point is thirty-two kilometers, the water temperature is no more than sixteen degrees; In the English Channel there are strong currents that change direction sharply with ebb and flow.
English sailor Matthew Webb first swam the English Channel. This was in 1875. After Webb, many athletes tried to swim across the strait, but they succeeded only thirty-six years later. The second winner of the English Channel was also the English sailor Thomas Burgess. At the time of Burges, the modern style of swimming, crawl, was not yet known. Burgess floated on his side. On this day the weather was bad, a dead swell began. Burges got seasick and even wanted to go back. His friends, who followed him on the boat, kept him from doing this. By morning the weather improved and the water seemed to calm down. But the most difficult thing awaited him near the French coast, where strong currents pass. Burges had to fight them, and these last five miles were the hardest. Burges began to hallucinate, he fell into a doze, but still floated. He was extremely exhausted when his friends shouted at him to put his feet down. Burges was already at the very shore and stood at the bottom.
In 1955, fourteen swimmers - four of them women - took on a race to swim across the English Channel. The Egyptian athlete Abu Heif won. He swam crawl and reached the shore twice as fast as Burgess or Webb.
This is the advantage the crawl gives. And it’s not surprising: after all, it was developed by many generations of swimmers.
Why did I need all this excursion into history? To show you how important it is to learn to swim sportily. It’s better to start learning to swim right away, the right way – in a sporting way. 
Try to slide between your friend's legs without hitting him.
But if you don't have an instructor who can show you the right ways to swim, why put off learning? In no case. Learn to swim crawl without extending your arms: the guys call this method “doggy style”. You can also learn “like a frog.” Watch the little frog, how deftly he moves in the water. From the simple “frog style” method came the magnificent sports style of breaststroke.
Everyone needs this
Swimming occupies a very special place among other sports; it is necessary for everyone.
For example, football or figure skating are very interesting activities. But most people live without mastering these sports in their entire lives. And no harm happens to them because of this. But a person can pay with his life for not knowing how to swim. It’s not for nothing that people who couldn’t swim were called “lame” in ancient Greece.
Children who go in for swimming grow quickly; all their muscles and spine are properly developed. Swimmers are slender and have excellent posture. Swimming corrects the stooped posture that occurs in many teenagers.
All swimmers have a wide chest and well-developed lungs. Doctors' studies show that some teenage swimmers have significantly greater lung capacity than adult males. And this is natural. When immersed in cool water, a person involuntarily begins to breathe deeper than on the shore. And besides, while swimming, he makes movements with his hands that help breathing: he spreads his arms to the side (in breaststroke), raises them up (in freestyle). These movements increase inhalation, and swimmers gradually increase their lung capacity.
Deep breathing also improves blood circulation. Swimming has a very good effect on the heart, blood vessels and nervous system.
There is no age when you can't swim. People swim until they are very old, but you need to start doing this sport from childhood.
And it must be said that the sooner an athlete starts swimming, the better results he will achieve. In Hungary, children are taught to swim from the age of six. In Sweden, twelve-year-olds participate in competitions on an equal basis with adults. I advise you guys to start learning to swim without delay.
Where to start?
Learn the movements of your arms and legs first on land, and then in the water.
My students start learning to swim when the snow has just melted. And they study not on the river, of course, but in our gym. During the lesson, I show the kids exercises that will help them get comfortable with the water, learn the movements of freestyle, breaststroke, freestyle freestyle, and teach them how to breathe correctly.
Look carefully at the exercises that are shown in these pictures, do them first on the shore, and then in a shallow place in the water. 
This is how you need to breathe when learning the freestyle crawl.
You will learn the free crawl quickly. From the very beginning, try to swim correctly and sportily. Stay horizontal on the water (this reduces water resistance). Don't hold your head high. When you exhale, your face should be in the water; when you inhale, raise your head so that only your mouth is above the water. Inhale through your mouth, and exhale through your mouth and nose directly into the water.
Stand in a shallow place and, bending down, lower your face into the water. Exhale, lift your face, inhale and exhale into the water again. Then practice breathing along with hand movements.
It is very important that your legs work correctly. There was such a case with our famous swimmer Leonid Meshkov during the war. When Meshkov, the commander of the reconnaissance detachment, having completed a mission behind enemy lines, crossed the front line with his soldiers, the Nazis discovered the scouts and opened fire. One of the soldiers, Kulakov, had his hand torn off. Meshkov applied a tourniquet to him, and the detachment continued on its way. There was a wide river in front of them. Meshkov, supporting the wounded Kulakov, crawled to the river, but was himself wounded in the shoulder blade and lost consciousness. Having come to his senses, Meshkov saw that his right hand hung lifelessly. Then he grabbed Kulakov with his good hand and threw himself into the water with him. Working in the water with only his legs, he swam across the river and carried the wounded man to the shore.
The movements of the legs in the crawl are seemingly simple: up and down, up and down. But remember that the leg muscles should not be very tense and you should hit the water with them as if they were whips. Imagine that your leg is a whip, the handle of which is your thigh. Hitting the water with your feet is called “flagellation”. Athletes practice them on land and in water, holding on to swimming boards.
I give all the kids a task for the summer. Anyone who does not know how to swim is given the task of learning. And the majority does it. You would have to be a very lazy person not to learn to swim in three summer months. It’s simply a pity for such people: after all, they deprive themselves of the enormous pleasure that swimming brings.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I studied at a children's and youth sports tourism school. I remember how the instructor, conducting a lesson on the topic “accidents and first aid on a tourist trip,” began the lecture with the question: “What do you think tourists most often die from?” And he himself answered: “That’s right, they’re drowning because of drunkenness.”
And since it’s summer, sun and water, let’s talk about the rules of safe swimming.
How not to drown yourself
Actually, the first safety rule for swimmers has almost been formulated: never, under any circumstances, get into the water drunk. Even if you drank a little. Even if you swim well and are completely confident in your body, everything happens for the first time.
The first cramp, the first dizziness, the first loss of consciousness from temperature changes, and so on. If we're going to die, then at least it won't be so stupid.
Considering that drinking water with alcohol usually makes you relax in the heat, the body’s reactions are quite unexpected. It’s getting hot - get wet, but there’s no need for heroic deeds or displays of valiant prowess.
There are other rules for safe swimming - more social than sporting: do not swim alone, do not take a running jump into the water in an unfamiliar place, do not lose sight of your comrades. When playing in water, do not grab each other by the neck: drowning occurs from lack of air, and therefore any obstruction of breathing is dangerous.
What to do if you feel like you're drowning
If you still feel like you are drowning, then the very first thing you need to do is calm down. Drowning is very scary, but the more you panic, the faster you lose oxygen and strength. Try not to flounder, roll over onto your back and stretch out. The water will hold you and you can take a breath. Try to make as few unnecessary movements as possible - do not crawl towards the shore, make smooth movements. Call for help as soon as possible.
Clothes should not be viewed as just a burden (with the exception of shoes like boots that gain weight in the water - it’s better to take them off right away). With some skill, a jacket tucked into pants and tightly buttoned can become an improvised life jacket. Again, even wet clothing provides some protection from the cold.
If you've swam too far, don't panic. You can hold water for quite a long time, and rest in the position on your back with your arms outstretched or in a float position (to do this, you should inhale and immerse your face in the water, hug your knees with your hands and press them to your body). Remember that the main cause of death on the water is inappropriate behavior, and not real danger. The main thing is to calm down and regain control of what is happening.
The most important thing is breathing. As long as the body is able to inhale air, it will not drown. Therefore, first of all, control the possibility of inhalation. The easiest way to do this is lying on your back.
As for cramps, there are quite simple steps to relieve them, even if there is no needle that experienced bathers carry with them. If your leg is cramped, immerse yourself in the water for a second with your head and, straightening your cramped leg, forcefully pull your foot toward you by the big toe; when you feel your fingers tightening, you must quickly and forcefully clench your hand into a fist, make a sharp, throwing movement of your hand to the outside and unclench your fist; when the calf muscle cramps, you need to bend over and grab the foot of the affected leg with both hands and forcefully pull it towards you, and so on.
In any case, you need to immediately change your swimming style, lie on your back, breathe and leave the water as soon as possible or call for help.
How to understand that a person is drowning
Most people drown in crowded places simply because they are swimming together, but drowning often goes unnoticed. There was a man and suddenly he disappeared. I didn’t call for help, I was just swimming with everyone else...
Oddly enough, people usually drown silently, do not scream or call for help, as is commonly believed. There is not enough air to scream. The scream is rather an indicator of fear and danger, but in itself it means that not everything is completely bad. So a distress signal may not be a cry for help, but on the contrary - if someone suddenly fell silent.
Other important signs of problems are frequent ascent and descent, when a person does not have time to breathe and plunges again; vertical position in the water without kicking; glassy or closed eyes; intermittent sharp breathing; hair covering the eyes or forehead, and the person does not try to remove it; inability to answer questions asked. The movements of a drowned person may look like an attempt to climb an invisible rope ladder.
In any case, do not hesitate to ask if you need help, and treat the lack of an answer as an SOS signal. This is exactly the situation when it is better to play it safe: the worst thing that can happen if you make a mistake is that you will prevent someone from swimming, but shyness can be very expensive.
How to pull out a drowning person
A drowning person usually panics and reacts inadequately to words addressed to him or simply does not hear them. Moreover, he can perceive a person who swims up simply as a support and hang on him like a dead weight, constraining his movements, which is fraught with the appearance of a second drowning person. One friend told me how he, a huge man, was almost drowned by a ten-year-old girl who, in fear, threw herself on top of him, clutching her head with her hands. From such a load, the man naturally sank, the girl along with him, she began to flounder in fear, let go of her hands, he floated up and everything was repeated until he immobilized her by force.
Therefore, if it is possible to throw a support to a drowning person - a lifebuoy, a piece of wood, an empty canister or something similar, or to swim with bare hands - be sure to use the means at hand. If you can do without direct contact with the drowning person, do so. It’s better to sail on a boat than just like that, and it’s better to immediately attract as much attention as possible from others.
If you have the opportunity to talk to a person, try to reach him, calm him down and encourage him, so that you don’t have to fight him in addition to just saving him.
It is better to pull a person out of the water in a supine position, especially if the person is inadequate. Rescuers often drag a drowning person by the hair - painful, of course, but simple and effective. If a person is able to hold on by himself, then he is usually transported so that he holds the rescuer by the shoulders (but not by the neck!), and does not hang on him, but maintains his buoyancy independently, if he can.
If a person has already plunged into the water, do not lose hope of pulling him out and pumping him out (see below for how this is done). Drowning is a rather long process; there are cases when people were brought back to life tens of minutes after they were taken out of the water. The colder the water, the higher the chances of resuscitation.
Drowning resuscitation
If you have taken first aid courses, then even without me you know perfectly well what to do, and practiced resuscitation actions on mannequins or comrades. If not, then verbal explanation without practice will probably not be enough.
For a better understanding it is useful to look video.
To put it very simply, you need to quickly free the victim’s mouth and nose from foreign objects (just with your hand, a handkerchief or something similar), and the upper respiratory tract from water. To do this, you need to put the victim first on his side, holding his head, and then on his stomach, bending him over his knee, and shake him. You can also squeeze the victim's chest firmly several times. You should not get carried away with this process, all the water is still difficult to remove - it is much more important to quickly start artificial respiration using the mouth-to-mouth method (the sooner you start doing it, the better) and chest compressions (here is a video, how it's done)
The victim should be warmed and brought to life in every possible way. And signs of revival - spontaneous breathing, pulse, convulsions - do not mean that resuscitation measures must be stopped. Moreover, hospitalization is mandatory in any case, because there are such unpleasant things as pulmonary edema and secondary drowning syndrome, when a person can die, seemingly having already been saved.
In addition, drowning is suffocation, and suffocation can have various kinds of unpleasant consequences associated with impaired blood supply to the brain and the development of neurological pathologies. Therefore, in any case, contact specialists.
The Big Ochakovsky Pond is overgrown with Osokina. This random metaphor can be interpreted in any way you like, but the fact remains: the first unsinkable woman appeared in Russia (and perhaps in the world)!THE FIFTEENTH WIFE
It all started five years ago. Then, having habitually gone down to the beach behind the house and entered the water, Muscovite Lyudmila Osokina-Vlodova felt that she was not drowning. No, she didn’t intend to drown herself (thank God, Lyudmila is not Katerina from Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm”) - she just felt that she had turned over on her back and was lying on the pond, as if on a blanket of water. He lies there and does not move, without moving his arms or legs.
She swam to the shore. I sat for some time on the shore in philosophical reverie: was it an obsession bestowed by the heat over the capital? The hot weather again pushed the woman into the pond. The second swim confirmed the incredible: Lyudmila convincingly did not drown. She tried to dive, but she had the feeling that she was in a spacesuit - the water was pushing the woman up.
At first I thought that the water had acquired some special properties. Of course, Ochakovsky Pond on the outskirts of the capital is far from the Dead Sea with its salt-saturated water that pushes a person upward. In the Ochakovsky pond, the depth of which in some places reaches many meters, not only people, but even KamAZ trucks regularly drowned every summer. So, the transformation (or mutation?) of water has nothing to do with it?
It seems that the reason for the unsinkability lay in Lyudmila herself.
I knew Luda back in the days when she could have drowned - hypothetically. She was the fifteenth wife of my old friend, the dissident poet Yuri Vlodov, who launched into people the catchphrase: “Winter has passed. Summer has come. Thanks to the party for this.” Vlodov himself is a mystical man, shrouded, as if by moonlight, in legends either about an encounter with a UFO, or about the subordination of the animal world to him - from cats to rats.
I myself saw how he “talked” to the rat - he told it something that made it meaningfully look at the person, turn around and never appear in that room again.
Therefore, when I learned from the program “Incredible Stories” on REN-TV that his “wife Lyuda does not drown,” I attributed this property of the poet’s wife to her many years of “irradiation” by Vlodov. It is said: husband and wife are one Satan.
But it's not that simple. Here is what Lyudmila herself, a historian by training, thinks about this:
- As soon as I noticed that I was not drowning, the secrets of Christian signs began to be revealed to me. The solution to the “Mystery of the Cross” has appeared. Why does the cross have three crossbars?
It would seem, what is there to unravel? Head, arms and legs on a crucifix. All clear. Nothing like this! The cross is a symbol of the universe, that is, life. But the cross and crucifix are symbols of death. So what happens? Symbol of life or symbol of death?
Eve and Adam ate an apple, for which they were expelled by God from paradise. The mystery of the cross is connected with the Fall. Outside the gates of heaven they laid the foundation for the human race. That is, life. For people, earthly existence is called life. For God and the angels, for the inhabitants of paradise, such life is called death. For God, people died as a result of sin. And Christ’s saying “Let the dead bury their dead” means that all people are already dead.
As a result of the sin committed, people fell. Where? Down into the third world, into the third dimension. After all, in our world there are precisely three dimensions. People committed a triple sin - spirit, soul and body. They committed a triple fall and ended up in the third world. This is what the three bars on the cross symbolize.
THEY WANTED TO TIED HER WITH duct tape...
...Looking at the photographs where Lyudmila Osokina-Vlodova was captured either in the Ochakovsky pond or in the Olympic village pool, I noticed that she was lying on the surface like a cross. But not every person can open his cross on the water and be unsinkable! Honored Master of Sports in water polo Sergei Naumov comments on the Lyudmila phenomenon:
- Such buoyancy is amazing! Yes, based on swimming technique, you can stay on the water, but you need to make some movements. But lying motionless on the water?.. It can be assumed that the woman took a deep breath into her lungs. However, judging by the television footage, I see that she is breathing calmly, without straining...
The TV crew called Lyuda before filming:
- We will tie you up in the water with tape!..
- How will you peel it off then? It hurts! - Lyudmila answered and took ribbons with her to the beach. The reporters tied Osokina-Vlodova's hands and feet with these ribbons. But the wife of the dissident poet, tied up, refused to drown.
Then the “torturers” placed a Soviet-era iron on her chest. Lyudmila heroically stayed on the pond. "Sadomasochists" from Central Television went for a new sophistication. In order to exclude the presence of air in the test subject’s body, which might make her unsinkable, they began pouring mineral water into the woman’s mouth. But she steadfastly did not drown...
At this time, her husband, the poet Yuri Vlodov, on the loggia of the 15th floor, puffing on a cigarette, saw his 15th wife Lyudmila passing the unsinkability test below, in the Big Ochakovsky Pond.
- It doesn’t sink - that’s good. Why drown? - he said. - It’s always dear to me that she doesn’t drown. I’ll start going into the reasons for its unsinkability - what if it drowns? I didn't make it unsinkable. This was done for a reason and for something. The world is dominated by the inexplicable. If there were no inexplicable things, there would be no world at all...
I ask Lyudmila:
- Haven’t you taken any tests?
- I didn’t give up! I'm going to do this.
Despite her 46 years, she looks much younger. Many young people believe that Luda is their age. The bearer of the “water” phenomenon herself does nothing to improve her appearance.
- Inhibited state of conservation. The state is mental, not external...
- Everyone thinks that Lyudka is my granddaughter! - the venerable Yuri Aleksandrovich Vlodov chuckles.
“My zodiac sign is Pisces,” testifies Lyudmila. - But I don't really like water. And, oddly enough, despite the fact that I don’t drown, I never swim far...
And I thought about this: “Given global warming and the associated cataclysms, large-scale floods around the world, perhaps nature, according to some self-regulating code, begins to prepare people for a new global flood? And forms its first squad of unsinkables? And not at all It’s a coincidence that a woman was chosen first on this list..."
This is one of our most powerful intuitive fears: to find ourselves at a depth, far below the surface of the earth, with an incredible burning sensation in our lungs. Drowning is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide each year, most of them in young children.
Of course, water is a key factor when a person drowns, but there is also strong economic correlation.
That is, in poor countries people drown much more often. For example, in Bangladesh, 17,000 children drown every year, that's 46 people a day.
Below are 10 facts about drowning, from a lake that never gives up its victims to a lifeguard party that ends in a deadly irony.
10. A lake in which they can never find a person who drowned in it
Hidden in the Sierra Nevada American Mountains between California and Nevada, Lake Tahoe is a popular holiday destination, which, however, is shrouded in frightening mystery. The lake is very massive and deep (501 meters).
During the summer months, the lake becomes a real paradise for swimmers, boaters and water skiers. But they don't understand that underneath is the real thing. cemetery.
Each of us has probably seen on TV or in some crime programs how a corpse floating on the surface is removed from the water. When a person becomes drowned, he goes to the bottom and remains there until his lungs fill with water.
Soon after this, bacteria begin to operate inside the corpse with all their might, which causes the accumulation of gases, and the body floats to the surface like a cork.
In Lake Tahoe, the water is so cold that it inhibits bacteria, therefore, bodies rarely float to the surface. Due to the fact that the lake is located very high (1.9 km above sea level), divers cannot go down to the depths as in an ordinary body of water, so the bodies of drowned people are never found.
In 2011, several divers descended 107 meters underwater using specialized equipment and discovered the body of Donald Windecker, who had gone missing in 1995 year.
His body was in water at a temperature of 1.7 degrees Celsius at a depth of 81 meters for 16 years! It has been preserved very well due to the cold depths in which bacteria cannot thrive.
No one knows how many more thousands of corpses lie at the bottom of this lake, which after the summer holiday is regularly replenished with new drowned people.
How a person drowns
9. People drown differently in fresh and salt water
At first glance, it may seem that swimming in the ocean is much more dangerous than swimming in a lake. Crashing waves and rip currents can easily kill a person. But the shocking statistics say that 90 percent of drownings occur in fresh waters.
To understand the reason for this, we need to delve a little deeper into chemistry. Fresh water, unlike salt water, is more similar in composition to our blood. Once it enters the lungs, it passes through osmosis into the bloodstream.
When diluted with water, blood cells burst, leading to multiple organ failure. The whole process takes no more 2-3 minutes.
Ocean water contains much more salt than human blood. When a person begins to choke, the body tries to protect itself by “thickening” the blood and “transferring” water to the lungs.
In order to die in salt water, a person would need 8-10 minutes, thereby his chances of salvation are much higher.
8. Delayed drowning
In 2008, 10-year-old autistic Johnny Jackson was playing at Goose Creek, South Carolina, under the watchful eye of his mother. Johnny had soft pillows in his arms that kept him afloat, but, nevertheless, he still swallowed some water.
He coughed a little and seemed to come to his senses. There is nothing unusual about this; this usually happens to many children who go swimming. After this, the boy did not have any breathing problems.
Upon returning home, his mother helped him take a bath, and the boy went to bed.
A few minutes later, Johnny's mother returned to Johnny's room to check if he had fallen asleep and found her son with foam at the mouth and blue lips. Johnny died of cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.
He inhaled too much water, which slowly drained the oxygen from his body and killed him. This rare condition is known as "delayed drowning".
Heartbroken mother Cassandra lamented: “I never could have imagined that a child could walk and talk with lungs filled with water.” Although this can happen to anyone, children are actually the most susceptible to such things.
Pediatricians advise that if after bathing your child’s behavior seems strange to you, or he has breathing problems, then you should immediately consult a doctor.
Dead sea water
7. Dead Sea
This sea received this name due to the fact that the salinity of the water practically deprived it of life. The sea is located between Israel and Jordan and is popular among tourists.
Everyone knows that the water in this sea is so salty that it is impossible to drown in it. It’s true, it’s almost impossible to drown in it in the usual way, that is, to completely submerge under water.
The human body is held by the waters of the Dead Sea, so it is difficult to touch the bottom with your feet. However, if you decide to dive, it may end badly for you. Even swallowing just a few sips of water full of minerals and salts will upset your electrolyte balance and fill your body with toxins.
Many people who swallowed water and did not drown immediately, then pass away. long period of rehabilitation, since internal organs suffer greatly from chemical burns and pneumonia.
In the most advanced cases, dialysis may be required.
Death penalty: drowning
6. Death penalty
Drowning has been used as a capital punishment for thousands of years. Surprisingly, this type of death penalty was considered "noble" and, as a rule, it was “reserved” for women and privileged men.
Most countries abandoned the practice in the 17th century, but there was a revival of the tradition during the anti-witch era and the French Revolution.
In Salem and elsewhere, the process of identifying a woman as a witch was quite cruel. The man was hung upside down and thrown into the water. If the woman did not belong to the clan of witches, then she floundered and then drowned, going under water, while the witch, using black magic, floated to the surface and was killed by another weapon.
A lot of people died during the French Revolution because new methods had to be tested, before "going to the conveyor belt". The guillotine was surprisingly effective, but could only kill one person at a time.
The period from November 1873 to February 1874 was very tragic and known as the "Reign of Terror". On the orders of revolutionary Jean-Baptiste Carrier, thousands of people were executed in Nantes, France, on suspicion of disloyalty to the crown.
These people were all gathered together, loaded onto barges and drowned in the river, calling the event a “national bath.”
5. A person drowns differently than they show in the movies.
In films and television, the drowning scene is stereotypical - the victim is very active and desperately clinging to the last chance of survival. In real life, everything happens differently. When a person realizes that he is about to drown, he is overtaken by a condition known as "The instinctive reaction of a drowning man."
This state is completely devoid of drama, even if there are swimmers or rescuers in the line of sight of the drowning person. Experts recommend that in such cases, if a person thinks that the behavior of the “swimmer” near him is strange, then immediately take appropriate measures.
A drowning person will not be able to answer a basic question, and will also not be able to swim to rescue equipment, so you should not waste precious seconds and help him.
How people drown
That's how it usually is looks drowning, according to Dr. Francesco A. Pia:
In very rare cases, a drowning person is able to physiologically call for help. The first function of the respiratory system is breathing, speech is secondary. Therefore, in order to start speaking again, you first need to restore your breathing.
The mouth of a drowning man goes under the water and then appears above the surface again. However, when the mouth is above the water, it is not enough to exhale, inhale, and then call for help. When he emerges, he only has time to inhale and exhale, after which he immediately plunges under the water again.
A drowning person cannot wave his arms to attract attention. He instinctively, trying to push off from the water, stretches his arms to the sides. These are precisely the movements thanks to which he floats to the surface and can take a breath.
All because of the same instincts, a drowning person is unable to control his hand movements. A person who is trying to stay on the water is physiologically unable to “stop drowning” and make meaningful movements - head towards the rescuers, wave his arms or grab life-saving equipment.
During the period of the instinctive reaction, the person remains in an upright position, while the legs do not show any sign of supporting movements. If the rescuer does not remove him from the water, then after staying on the surface for 20-60 seconds, the person will completely go under water.
Signs of a drowning person
Here are the signs you should pay attention to to understand that a person is drowning:
1) The head is in the water, and the mouth is near the surface;
2) The mouth is half-open or open, and the head is thrown back;
3) The gaze is empty, does not focus;
4) Eyes can be closed;
5) There is hair on the forehead and eyes;
6) The person does not move his legs, stays on the water in an upright position;
7) Above the surface, a person breathes frequently, literally swallowing air;
8) Tries unsuccessfully to swim in some direction;
9) Unsuccessful attempts to roll over onto your back;
10) It may seem to you as if a drowning person is climbing a rope ladder.
4. Mammalian diving reflex
At the dawn of their existence, people, apparently, did not have any ability to survive in water. We are relatively poor swimmers compared to other animals.
However, humans are endowed with an evolutionary adaptation that allows aquatic animals such as whales and seals to remain underwater for long periods of time: diving reflex of mammals.
When a person's face touches the water, then the series begins involuntary physiological reactions, which are designed to save life. The airways close, the heart rate slows, and the capillaries in the skin and limbs narrow, sending blood to vital organs.
All this serves a dual purpose: maintaining oxygen in the organs and insulating them from the ever-increasing water pressure. Unfortunately, this also depletes the strength of the limbs.
The manifestation of this reflex most often occurs in drowning children. They actually have a much better chance of recovery than an adult. Moreover, the colder the water, the better, since a slower metabolism allows the body to enter a state similar to hibernation.
Thanks to this reflex, many drowning children who are removed from the water after a few minutes in it can be resuscitated relatively quickly without any damage. neurological damage.
3. Drowning animals
Animals are often much smarter than we think of them. As a rule, they use all the features of the environment to their advantage. Eg, Raccoons are very adorable creatures if left alone.
They are not particularly dangerous, but can turn into wild fighters when attacked. Most raccoon confrontations occur with domestic dogs determined to kill the raccoon. However, the fighter has a trump card.
If the “battle” takes place near a body of water, then the smart little creature will try to sneak away there. And when the dog follows him, the raccoon will attack the dog, hitting him on the head and trying to drown him.
In Australia, kangaroos use similar tactics to defend against dingo attacks. Otters are especially devilish. They breed violently in the water, and the female sometimes drowns during mating. Male otters love to attack young seals, raping and killing them.
2. Minors drown more often
There are many different types of accidents that claim lives indiscriminately, but drowning can sometimes be very specific in its choice of victims. For example, in most countries Men drown in the vast majority of cases at a much higher rate than women.
This is not due to any physiological difference. The whole point is that men more inclined to the consumption of alcoholic beverages and risky behavior in water.
As for minors, things are even worse. In the US alone, African Americans children aged 5 to 14 years die from drowning almost three times more often, than white children of the same age.
The statistics are most pronounced at the age of 11-12 years. This is the age when African Americans 10 times (!) more likely to drown. Again, this is not due to any physiological difference between blacks and whites. It's all about getting used to water.
Most African Americans live in urban centers, where they have fewer opportunities to go to the pool and learn to swim.
1. Irony of fate
Nowhere would you feel more protected than at an event dedicated to lifeguards. But in 1985, a man drowned at a party in New Orleans, Louisiana. The party was dedicated to the fact that over the past summer no one drowned in any of the city's pools.
There were about 200 people at the party, more than half of whom were certified lifeguards. Moreover, four of them served on that fateful evening when 31-year-old Jerome Moody died(Jerome Moody).
The details of his death are unknown, but the man's body was discovered when the evening was almost over and guests went out onto the balcony to admire the pool. Attempts immediately made to resuscitate Jerome turned out to be unsuccessful.
It is not surprising that this turn of events was very painful. In addition to the fact that a man died, he also drowned at an evening dedicated to the first season in many years without drowning.
