I have 4 young kids and really appreciate this video. My wife and I have tried to teach each of them to swim at an early age because drowning is SO SILENT! Once we were at a local park lake with my daughter who really young. She was in like 1-2 feet of water, and we were both within 5 feet of her watching as intently as possible. Suddenly a little girl playing next to her said something like "are you ok?" which made us look and see our daughter's face was underwater and she was drowning. The whole thing lasted like 10 seconds, but it was still really scary. I think we would have seen in time regardless, but the fact that we were trying to watch so closely and almost missed it was crazy.<p>You also have to be very careful when multiple kids are in the pool. Sometimes a kid who is a great swimmer can drown when another kid starts panicking and climbs on top of them to stay afloat.
Was looking at the videos and my main take away was : "Why do they allow these floatation devices in the pool?" If you cant swim and are short enough (basically most kids) why let you climb on that slippery ballon and go in the water? It's like giving kids knifes and let them in the bouncy castle.
Swimming seems to be at least partly a cultural thing. In the Philippines, I'm regularly surprised by the number of people who say they can't swim. A handful of videos is a small sample, but it seems to be a similar situation here where 5 out of the first 6 videos I watched were black kids. Being a lifeguard in a high risk area would be too stressful for me. I'm stressed just watching these videos. Big respect to watchful heroes saving the day for these kids.
I think everyone should spend ten minutes watching these videos. I did this once eight years ago and now the "look" is so burned into my brain that I can't unsee it. I have kids now and I am glad I could possibly spot this. The lifeguards are WAY faster but it's better than not seeing this at all.
I think there is another element at play in these videos: in addition to being well-trained and paying attention, these lifeguards also know these kids.<p>I think they recognize some of the kids and are on alert-- in at least one video, the lifeguard jumps in a mere 2 seconds after the kid slides off the float, and there are others that are similarly fast. Of course, it could also be that they happened to be looking at just the right time. However, in the 2-second one, the lifeguard turns to look at someone below them who splashes, then turns straight back to the section of the pool with the kid who then slides off, and in she jumps.<p>In some cases I would guess that they either know the regular kids, or they've been watching and gradually adding/removing kids from a mental list of high-risk candidates to keep an eye on. In other words, their excellent response times are aided by both their ability to recognize the signs as well as context gained throughout the summer or that day.
It's a different video each time. Refresh the page to try again. It's important in my opinion, I never would have thought that the drowning instinct is part of the problem - it silences any panic response that would grab the attention of people nearby.
I didn’t know so much about the instinctive drowning response, thanks. I was a competent swimmer before I formed conscious memories and have never experienced anything like that. I have done a few water rescues but it was a clear case of someone in the water not being able to swim at all and was over quickly. I guess panic is a core feature of this response?
Every time I see this page, I wonder WTF we (USA) don't provide basic swimming lessons to all kids. Being able to swim competently seems like a basic life skill to me.
Hmm - I must have got an obvious one where the drowning child started flailing his arms desperately trying to stay above water, splashing a lot, which isn't what people do according to the description.
I was drowning once when I was 5 or 6 years old, before I learned how to swim. It was exactly as described, I felt paralyzed, couldn't make any noise at all, I was terrified and was just trying to keep my mouth above the water. Thankfully some adult spotted me and dragged me out. Now that I have 2 kids, 4 and 8, whenever I take them to the beach, I never take my eyes off of them when they are in the water.
I got one with flailing and splashing, so it was pretty easy to spot: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aQ6h8U-rqZ4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/embed/aQ6h8U-rqZ4</a><p>For the record, I watched a young girl start to drown. She walked out a little too far and couldn't touch the bottom anymore. She kept trying to bounce up and get breaths of air but couldn't keep her head above the water for long. There was no splashing, and she couldn't call out for help properly because she was barely getting enough air.<p>I don't think anybody other than me noticed it happening until I rushed out to save her.
I think it's the third or fourth time I see it (not on this website) and I've actually gotten really good at it by now! I don't know if I've trained myself to spot drowning people or specifically these drowning people though
Would anyone be willing to explain the take-away points from these videos/how to spot someone who is drowning? I would love to be educated about this, but I don't have the stomach to actually watch these right now...
video number 10 (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-EKqLdbysk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-EKqLdbysk</a>) was drastically harder than the others, I couldn't even see the lifeguard jumping in at the end initially.<p>First two refreshes of the page loaded it so I thought it was the fixed first video
Not to be that guy but this is the sort of thing I could imagine might benefit from an AI also. Train an AI to recognize drowning, and sound an alarm just in case the lifeguard misses it...
Previous HN posts with sufficient conversation:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482731">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482731</a> (4 years ago)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185</a> (9 years ago)<p>also OP posted same link 2 days ago.
I can't find the drowning child. The comments for the youtube videos are even disabled. Some more tries, but then I'll give up.<p>.. there is a description below the video, which seems helpful, if you ever want to spot drowning children<p>edit: at the end of the video a lifeguard swims to the drowning child