Why do people drown?

Why do people drown?

As the great Cousteau used to say, accidents on the water happen because people fail to follow basic safety rules. He's partly right, and what's more, I'm not going to argue with the master.

What medicine has to say about it.

The cause of drowning is water getting into the airways and lungs.

The consequence: water replacing the air in the lungs leads to breathing stopping. Water that gets into the lungs penetrates the alveoli, which in turn swell and burst, the capillaries hemorrhage and gas exchange stops. Air, blood and water form a thick mass that pours out of the victim's mouth. Then hypoxia sets in, causing the victim's face and limbs to turn bluish. The water triggers a reflex spasm of the glottis, which cuts off the air supply to the lungs. Breathing stops and the person loses consciousness.

All of this is enough to simply scare you, and any desire to get into the water disappears. Maybe the main reason people drown really is FEAR. Behind the cry for help - "Save me, I can't swim! " there's psychological shock and panic in an extreme situation: for example, with injuries, and I won't even talk about sharks. A person loses self-control, only reflexes break out, and blindly obeying them easily leads to an accident. Also coughing, sneezing, burping and vomiting trigger powerful reflex breaths through the mouth that are very hard to stop, and this is also a cause of drowning. If you're struggling with a cough, just grip the mouthpiece tighter in your mouth.

When I was little and went to a swimming club, my coach used to say that people drown partly because of their own ignorance. I'll teach you how NOT to drown, and then you go ahead and try to DROWN yourself and we'll see what happens. And it works: if you know how not to drown, drowning yourself gets a lot harder.

A swimmer can choke on water in different situations, but for one reason, and it's simple and you can't argue with its nature — a reflex breath when the oxygen level in the blood drops to a critical point.

Any lifeguard will tell you that, depending on how much water gets into the lungs, there are several types of drowning.

Apparent (dry, asphyxial) drowning happens when a small amount of water gets into the lungs. If the glottis spasm occurs at the start of drowning, the laryngeal muscles not only block air from reaching the lungs but also keep water out of the alveoli — so it doesn't flood the lungs even when the person is unconscious. Despite the reflex stopping of breathing and heart function, a person can be saved even half an hour after this kind of drowning.

True (wet) drowning is caused by water getting into the alveoli, if the glottis spasm happens after the lungs have been flooded with a large amount of water. This irreversibly disrupts breathing and circulation, leading to general hypoxia. A person can only be saved if they've been underwater for no more than 6 min.

Syncopal drowning is the transitional type between apparent and true drowning. Hypothermia, shock, nitrogen narcosis or decompression sickness can cause the heart to stop at the same time as breathing, as early as 5 — 10 min after drowning.

I think we've figured out how and why a person drowns. But what you need to do so as not to drown yourself… that's right here and now.

Let's remember grandpa Archimedes. If the force of gravity exceeds his force, the body sinks; if it's the other way round, it floats. So the first thing a drowning person has to do is immediately increase their volume and reduce their weight. Everyone understands that if a person is wearing clothes, they need to get rid of them. A spearfisher should immediately drop their weight belt. After all, a person's buoyancy is practically neutral — close to zero in fresh water and almost positive in sea water, plus there's the wetsuit.

Next, roll onto your back, get into a horizontal position and keep holding it by working your legs. Lungs of any volume, filled with air, reliably keep a person on the surface of the water. Mother Nature is wise as always. But you must not shout that you're drowning. Most people who end up in a critical situation do exactly the opposite: shouting "I'm drowning!" they let the air out of their lungs and, of course, sink, then immediately try to take a breath and choke, losing their precious buoyancy in the process. Combined with holding a horizontal position, the technique of holding your breath with full lungs will never let you drown.

DON'T LET YOURSELF DROWN YOURSELF!