[devit]

Seems insane to allow non-swimmers to use floating tubes that can flip over without also wearing personal flotation devices.

Even with a lifeguard, what if multiple people need saving at the same time, or the lifeguard just doesn't notice it after a long time with no interventions require.

[JackCh]

>"Seems insane to allow non-swimmers to use floating tubes that can flip over without also wearing personal flotation devices."

Years ago I worked as a lifeguard at a public pool where the policy was no flotation devices unless you proved yourself a capable swimmer (able to confidently swim 50 yards.) The rule seemed counter-intuitive for a lot of people, but I'd say it worked well. We never had any flotation-related incidents.

Nonswimmers needed to stay in the shallow end (where to be sure there was still a drowning risk) and because they had to not use any floats, the chance they'd panick was reduced (panicking usually happens when conditions suddenly change, such as when somebody falls off a pool noodle even if the water is shallow enough to stand up.) Taking floats away from non-swimmers, as well as some other common sense policy such as no rough-housing, greatly reduces the chance of anything going wrong.

[bonniemuffin]

I remember experiencing exactly that failure mode as a kid-- slipping off of a floatie in the deep end before I was a confident swimmer and needing to be rescued.

[tgb]

I think you're jumping to conclusions that they are non-swimmers.

[christophilus]

Not the OP, and I've only watched ~8 of those videos, but it seems pretty safe to say they are non-swimmers. Is there a reason you think I'm jumping to that conclusion?

[tgb]

On what basis do you assume they are non-swimmers? The video doesn't show them swimming - well sure they were in a tube of course it doesn't show them swimming. Just because you can swim fine doesn't mean you will do so when you flip unexpectedly out of a tube when the panic response takes over.

One (the first one I saw when opening it again) where the drowner is never using a float: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXFgOBjk860

The second one I saw he appears to intentionally be leaving the float to go swim so at least thinks he is capable of swimming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NycwxaU4GPw

And for completeness, the third one I saw: are you seriously suggesting that you can judge someone's swimming ability from her response after this flip? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STY8N-33-tQ

[JackCh]

With respect to that last example: a flip like that can be very disorienting, and even a skilled swimmer can be imperiled like that if they fail to disentangle their legs. She did manage to free her legs and right herself, but at that point in her panicked state she failed to tread water. I would say she was a poor swimmer, if not a nonswimmer. Possibly able to swim while under normal ideal conditions but forgot how to when disoriented. It's not impossible but it seems very unlikely that she was a skilled swimmer.

[tgb]

Let me be clear:

- Once you start drowning, you don't look like a good swimmer no matter if you're Phelps or not

- Videos selected specifically to have people who start drowning in them will show people at their absolute worst swimming moment

- You do not have to be a poor swimmer to start drowning at your worst moment

- There is no reason to think that the drowners wouldn't have passed a "do three laps in the pool and tread water for N minutes" type test

- Requiring a basic swim competency before being allowed to use floats will no doubt reduce the risk of these incidents and is reasonable to do regardless

If you saw a video of a car crash, would you assume that driver had not taken driver's ed? Or rather that they were careless or caught by surprise or had a malfunction or hit a sudden patch of ice or even were intoxicated?

If the lesson you took from this was "this pool was irresponsible in allowing these obviously terrible swimmers in" then you got completely the wrong message. Please don't take the fact that your kid passed her swim test at Girl Scouts to mean that she too won't flip off a tube suddenly, gulp in water down the wrong way and be overcome by our animal instincts. Such an assumption is literally dangerous.

[JackCh]

> "- There is no reason to think that the drowners wouldn't have passed a "do three laps in the pool and tread water for N minutes" type test"

Just to be clear so you understand where I'm coming from, I'd say that somebody who could do three laps but not four is a poor swimmer. 75 yards (or even 150 meters assuming a 50 meter pool) is a very lax standard for calling somebody a swimmer. Technically yes, it proves you can swim. But it certainly doesn't prove you're good at it.

In my experience one of the core facets of being a skilled swimmer is being less likely to panic (the others being endurance and technical skill.) Without one of these three it's easy to find yourself in hot water. Technical skill is important because without enough of it, even a very fit person will reach the limits of their endurance quickly. A cool head is important because if you panic, your technical skill can't be put into practice (this is the most difficult part of teaching most kids how to swim. A lot of time goes into making them comfortable in the water so that they're less likely to panic. I've still got that damn "wheels on the bus" song stuck in my head many years later...) Endurance is arguably the least important of the three, provided you have a cool head and sufficient technical skill to float on your back until rescued, but it's still obviously important.

The reason I'm saying that person is probably a poor swimmer at best is because of the severity of the circumstances that caused her to panic. It's unlikely but not impossible that a skilled swimmer would panic when unexpectedly dunked like that. I'm trying not to speak in absolutes. Maybe she's a skilled swimmer who got a lung-full of water when she went over backwards, but that's less likely than her being a poor swimmer or nonswimmer. I've seen a lot of skilled swimmers put themselves in much worse situations than that and recover from it fine. I'm sure sometimes they don't, but most of the time they do. I once saw a very skilled swimmer full of teenage bravado do a cannonball jump into the middle of a floating pool cover, a literal death trap, but he didn't panic and got out of it alive.

Whether or not she attended drivers ed, aka swimming lessons, I cannot say. For all I know she might have several weeks of swim practice under her belt, or zero. Some people take to swimming very quickly, while other people struggle with it despite the best efforts of the instructors. Attending swimming lessons doesn't make you a good swimmer anymore than attending drivers ed makes you a good driver. It aims to, but won't necessarily succeed.

[cujo]

>And for completeness, the third one I saw: are you seriously suggesting that you can judge someone's swimming ability from her response after this flip?

Yes. A thousand times, yes. That is not a strong swimmer.

[tgb]

Please explain why you think that! You literally just see her sitting on a tube, fall over while shrieking and then start drowning because she probably swallowed water the wrong way while shrieking and falling into the water. At that point, it's game over, doesn't matter how good a swimmer she is because she's literally not in control of her body.

Edit: to be clear, I agree that she's very unlikely to be a local swim champion or something. What I am claiming is that even a standard knows-how-to-swim 9 year old can start drowning like that.

[Micrococonut]

Yea but that's the difference between knows-how-to-swim and being a strong swimmer. If she was a strong swimmer she would be in control of her body after something as trivial as flipping out of a tube.

[someguydave]

That's possibly true, but a skilled swimmer is much less likely to be so disoriented that they begin to drown rather than recover.