Pool Barrier of Oklahoma

Drowning is the fifth leading cause of unintentional injury death in the US, where about 10 people die from drowning every day.

The risk is even greater among children aged 1-4, who have the highest drowning rates, and it remains the second-leading cause of accidental death (second only to motor vehicle accidents) for kids 1-14.1

What’s shocking, however, is that many drowning deaths among children occur when the child is being supervised and may be only a short distance from an adult. Occurring quickly and quietly, a drowning can happen right before your eyes, before you even realize what happened…

Many people believe a drowning person will flail about in the water, splash and make noise to call for help. But this image, widely used on TV shows to depict a drowning, is far from reality.

Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., a former lifeguard and educator, coined the term “instinctive drowning response” to describe what happens when a person is very close to drowning. In the video above, you can see an example, in this case a boy who is little more than an arm’s reach away from several other swimmers who are oblivious to his distress.

As Pia explains, when a person is drowning, nature takes over and the movements become a result of instinct. For starters, the person will not be able to call for help, as their body is working on struggling to breathe first and foremost.

They also will not be able to wave their arms to attract attention, as the instinctive response is for your arms to extend out laterally and press down against the water’s surface in an attempt to keep your head above water. Children may even appear to be dog-paddling when in fact they’re drowning.

The other telltale sign of a drowning person is no movement from their legs; a drowning person will not kick but will instead remain upright in the water, sometimes appearing to be climbing an invisible ladder with their feet.

5 Signs of Drowning to Memorize Before Your Next Trip to the Beach or Pool

According to Dr. Pia and Mario Vittone, a former US Cost Guard rescue swimmer:2

“The Instinctive Drowning Response represents a person's attempts to avoid the actual or perceived suffocation in the water. The suffocation in water triggers a constellation of autonomic nervous system responses that result in external, unlearned, instinctive drowning movements that are easily recognizable by trained rescue crews.”

You, too, can learn to recognize the signs that a person is in need of immediate assistance in the water. If a person is shouting and waving for help, they may still be in distress and need assistance. However, the five signs that follow, reported inOn Scene, the journal of US Coast Guard Search and Rescue,3 may occur when a person is only 20-60 seconds from disappearing below the surface:

• Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary, or overlaid, function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
• Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
• Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
• Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
• From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response, people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.