Many parents mean well in their crude attempts to teach their
child how to swim. It is possible that some approaches stem from
impatience and laziness such as simply flinging the kid off the end of a
pier or over the side of a boat with the instruction "swim or drown!"
This was my unfortunate experience at the tender age of 7 or 8 years old. The result was not the traditional and smoothly orchestrated overhand stroke demonstrated by an Olympic swimmer, but rather an uncontrollable thrashing and churning in the attempts to keep my head above water. Oh, I must not leave out the accompanied panic and frantic gasping for air and occasional gulp of water. It does not take long for instinct and the love of life to kick in before you start swimming like many of God's creatures would under the same circumstances. From mice, cats, and dogs to horses, hippos and elephants, they all take the dog's lead and begin "dog paddling" to stay afloat and get to safety.
As a result of this barbaric approach to water safety training, I have a fear of deep water, which is any water too deep to for my chin to stay dry. In addition to dog paddling, I learned on my own how to float on my back. As a result, as long as the water is calm, I can go a fairly long distance by alternating between dog paddling and floating on my back using the back-stroke.
This is fine and dandy in a lake, pond or swimming pool. In fact, that is the only way I passed the swimming test in the Navy "Boot Camp", and did not get my fingers stepped on as some did by grabbing the rim of the pool before the allotted time was up. I would never have passed if the test took place in choppy water because I would panic when I got water in my nose!
An electrician never truly respects the danger of electricity until he experiences electrocution short of death as I did. The potential danger from water is no different than from electricity since the results from drowning are identical to electrocution: permanent!
Several years ago, while dog paddling out to a reef off the Cancun shore, I was saved from being quickly whisked out to sea by 10 mile per hour riptide. There was a large cable stretched from shore to the reef specifically for that reason, the riptide. I experienced first-hand for the first time the phenomenon of "your life flashing before your eyes." It was a horrifying experience that was magnified on the last day of our vacation at the Krystal Hotel as we waited on the ocean-side deck for the airport shuttle. We were soaking in the last of the view and smells of the tropical resort when the tranquil atmosphere was shattered by distant screams muffled by the roar of the violent surf created by a recent storm.
Looking in the direction of the screaming, we could see a group of about eight people gathered on shore a couple of hundred yards down the beach frantically shouting for help. My eyes strayed from the crowd over the churning froth and pounding thundering wave to a man struggling to stand upright as he was fighting to get to shore. By this time two more people entered the surf to help this exhausted man to shore. As he reached the beach he collapsed on the ground.
It was then that someone in our group shouted "Oh my God" and pointed out a second man who was a considerable distance from shore, also apparently unsuccessfully trying to out-swim the rip tide. Then I noticed a head bobbing in the water 40-forty to fifty feet further out. Less than a minute later he could no longer be seen; in another minute the second man disappeared beneath the surface. My only thoughts were, where are the life guards, rescue team, how could this happen? That could have been me or my wife!
Paradise was instantly transformed into a place of shock, horror, grief and disbelief and sadly became the overpowering memory of the entire trip and vacation.
You can imagine, then, what it must have been like to experience the same thing again 35 years later in San Diego's surf. I'm referring to getting unexpectedly caught in a rip tide and being swept out to sea, undetected by the life guards or people on the beach. Thank God my wife is an athlete and expert swimmer, because she was able to overpower the current and get both of us to shore before I lost all strength. I was saved once by a cable and once by my wife.
My awareness of the dangers of water is keen; and as a consequence of my close encounters and brushes with death I share this story in hope of saving even one life. There is a device similar to a life ring, only smaller, that can be thrown over 100 feet to a drowning person in seconds without needing to enter the water and risking your own life.
It is a throwable disk with a rope coiled up in it. It is thrown like a Frisbee and makes it easy to reach the drowning person who can grab either the disc or the rope. They can be found in the trunks of almost all police cars, fire trucks, coastguard, border patrol and water rescue teams. They are called rescue discs or Frisbee-type water discs, life saver discs and water rescue discs. Children have used these devices to save adult lives.
In Tennessee six people thrown from a raft were saved using one rescue disc. Those men in Cancun would be alive today if the people on shore had one. These rescue discs have saved thousands of lives and only cost between $32 and $135. What is a life worth?
This was my unfortunate experience at the tender age of 7 or 8 years old. The result was not the traditional and smoothly orchestrated overhand stroke demonstrated by an Olympic swimmer, but rather an uncontrollable thrashing and churning in the attempts to keep my head above water. Oh, I must not leave out the accompanied panic and frantic gasping for air and occasional gulp of water. It does not take long for instinct and the love of life to kick in before you start swimming like many of God's creatures would under the same circumstances. From mice, cats, and dogs to horses, hippos and elephants, they all take the dog's lead and begin "dog paddling" to stay afloat and get to safety.
As a result of this barbaric approach to water safety training, I have a fear of deep water, which is any water too deep to for my chin to stay dry. In addition to dog paddling, I learned on my own how to float on my back. As a result, as long as the water is calm, I can go a fairly long distance by alternating between dog paddling and floating on my back using the back-stroke.
This is fine and dandy in a lake, pond or swimming pool. In fact, that is the only way I passed the swimming test in the Navy "Boot Camp", and did not get my fingers stepped on as some did by grabbing the rim of the pool before the allotted time was up. I would never have passed if the test took place in choppy water because I would panic when I got water in my nose!
An electrician never truly respects the danger of electricity until he experiences electrocution short of death as I did. The potential danger from water is no different than from electricity since the results from drowning are identical to electrocution: permanent!
Several years ago, while dog paddling out to a reef off the Cancun shore, I was saved from being quickly whisked out to sea by 10 mile per hour riptide. There was a large cable stretched from shore to the reef specifically for that reason, the riptide. I experienced first-hand for the first time the phenomenon of "your life flashing before your eyes." It was a horrifying experience that was magnified on the last day of our vacation at the Krystal Hotel as we waited on the ocean-side deck for the airport shuttle. We were soaking in the last of the view and smells of the tropical resort when the tranquil atmosphere was shattered by distant screams muffled by the roar of the violent surf created by a recent storm.
Looking in the direction of the screaming, we could see a group of about eight people gathered on shore a couple of hundred yards down the beach frantically shouting for help. My eyes strayed from the crowd over the churning froth and pounding thundering wave to a man struggling to stand upright as he was fighting to get to shore. By this time two more people entered the surf to help this exhausted man to shore. As he reached the beach he collapsed on the ground.
It was then that someone in our group shouted "Oh my God" and pointed out a second man who was a considerable distance from shore, also apparently unsuccessfully trying to out-swim the rip tide. Then I noticed a head bobbing in the water 40-forty to fifty feet further out. Less than a minute later he could no longer be seen; in another minute the second man disappeared beneath the surface. My only thoughts were, where are the life guards, rescue team, how could this happen? That could have been me or my wife!
Paradise was instantly transformed into a place of shock, horror, grief and disbelief and sadly became the overpowering memory of the entire trip and vacation.
You can imagine, then, what it must have been like to experience the same thing again 35 years later in San Diego's surf. I'm referring to getting unexpectedly caught in a rip tide and being swept out to sea, undetected by the life guards or people on the beach. Thank God my wife is an athlete and expert swimmer, because she was able to overpower the current and get both of us to shore before I lost all strength. I was saved once by a cable and once by my wife.
My awareness of the dangers of water is keen; and as a consequence of my close encounters and brushes with death I share this story in hope of saving even one life. There is a device similar to a life ring, only smaller, that can be thrown over 100 feet to a drowning person in seconds without needing to enter the water and risking your own life.
It is a throwable disk with a rope coiled up in it. It is thrown like a Frisbee and makes it easy to reach the drowning person who can grab either the disc or the rope. They can be found in the trunks of almost all police cars, fire trucks, coastguard, border patrol and water rescue teams. They are called rescue discs or Frisbee-type water discs, life saver discs and water rescue discs. Children have used these devices to save adult lives.
In Tennessee six people thrown from a raft were saved using one rescue disc. Those men in Cancun would be alive today if the people on shore had one. These rescue discs have saved thousands of lives and only cost between $32 and $135. What is a life worth?
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