I almost drowned yesterday

[IcePickFreak]

Well, when you release all the air in your chest, you tend to sink. If you can keep holding your breath in, you'll find you actually have to fight to get down because your body will float.

Might help if you just 'practice' holding your breath underwater without trying to go all the way to the bottom. To get use to it, it may be easier to do this if you have something like the pool ledge or ladder to keep yourself from floating up. Then release the air in your chest and you'll notice you no longer have to keep pushing yourself down, and if you panic you can always use the ledge/ladder to pull yourself up until you get used to how you have to control your breath while underwater.

 

[tcsenter]

I was around seven or eight, we visited my uncle who had an in-ground pool. I figured since I took swimming lessons about a year prior, I would jump in. Except, I jumped in the deep end feet first. My plan was to push-off the bottom but I never reached it. I was kind of in limbo, couldn't push off the bottom and I wasn't surfacing as quickly as I expected, then I panicked. I started flailing trying to get to the surface, then became disoriented, started swallowing water, flailing even more.

Everyone else was in the house except someone heard me jump in and told my sister to go see if I was alright. She was five years older and knew how to swim pretty well. She came out to find me basically drowning, jumped in and pulled me to the side ladder, helped me get out. I was coughing like crazy, had inhaled a bit of water but otherwise OK (started crying because I was so scared).

Stupid swimming lessons taught us how to tread and float in water (with arm floaties), but never much exposed us to any scenario UNDER the water. I had been totally submerged in the shallow end numerous times, but the bottom was always there. All I had to do was stand-up and my head was above water. But I panicked when I couldn't do the same thing in the deep end, found myself completely under the water with no bottom to push off from and nothing to grab onto. Plus, I didn't have those arm floaties (or anything else that added buoyancy) like we used in swimming class, so I wasn't surfacing as quickly.

A few years later, we got our own in-ground pool. Learned to swim like a fish, became a stronger swimmer than anyone else I knew.

 

[Powermoloch]

I almost drowned when I was 11. The scariest thing ever, good think my uncle back then saved me.

I swallowed gallons of pool water

 

[mvbighead]

Swimming is a skill that everyone should know, if only for survival. The idea of an adult or even a 10 year old drowning is unfathomable, because the basic form of swimming is so easy. Doggy paddle is about the easiest form possible, next to the breast stroke. And the breast stroke can easily be done above or below water.

While I never had swim class at school (nor a pool), a few trips to the local pool should be within anyone's reach. Should your kid wind up at a buddy's house who does have a pool, it'll be money well spent if he ever falls in. Heck $15 (3 $5 trips) that may wind up saving a kid's life some day? Sounds like a worthwhile investment to me.

 

[DrPizza]

Swimming's a useless skill for most, I wonder why some act so shocked when they meet someone who doesn't know how. I've never once in my life been in a situation where knowing how saved my life. Swimming's fun to me, but it's not important to know how to do at all imho. Hell I have friends who are in their 30's like me, and have never been around more water than a bathtub in their life.

I won't take people out in my boat who can't swim. I especially won't take people out water skiing, tubing, etc. I've taken dozens of non-family members out. All it takes is a friend with a boat & a nearby lake to have opportunities. But, you lose out on that opportunity if I have a clue that you can't swim.

In fact, heading back up to Mosh country for another weekend at the lake. I'll probably spend at least 8 hours a day out on the boat (and anchored somewhere, swimming near the boat.)

 

[Codewiz]

I won't take people out in my boat who can't swim. I especially won't take people out water skiing, tubing, etc. I've taken dozens of non-family members out. All it takes is a friend with a boat & a nearby lake to have opportunities. But, you lose out on that opportunity if I have a clue that you can't swim.

In fact, heading back up to Mosh country for another weekend at the lake. I'll probably spend at least 8 hours a day out on the boat (and anchored somewhere, swimming near the boat.)

No one cares about those types of activities as they are absolutely no fun

 

[fatpat268]

don't stop trying. Be like water and think fluid motions. Smooth efficient movements is what swimming's about.

One thing you can always do is if you get tired and your in the deep end, you find you can't tread anymore. Inhale a little more air than usual, relax, and lay on your back above the water. You will naturally stay afloat, it's actually a very soothing experience imo. Your ears will submerge but all your breathing bits should stay above the surface. Try it on the shallow end first.

That actually freaks me out the most for some reason, and is why I can't float on my back. Ironically, I have no problem floating face down though, since I can keep my ears out of the water.

 

[lokiju]

I've almost drowned a number of times just due to the amount of being in the water while growing up.

Lived on a lake a two different houses, lived on the intercostal water way in south east FL and across the street from the beach and had a swimming pool.

We used to always go into the rough waves when a hurricane was coming (before it came) and there was one time as a kid on a boogie board that I got picked up and slammed on my head with a huge force onto the ocean floor. Knocked the wind out of me, made me nearly black out and I was so disoriented. I started floating up and snapped out of the daze and was surrounded in really churned up water that was foamy bubbles everywhere and started to swim to the surface and realized I was swimming down when I touched the ocean floor again.

It was close, didn't think I was going to make it to the surface before I blacked out.

But I just put my feet on the ocean floor and push off as hard as I could manage and broke the surface not a moment to soon.

Scared the shit out of me.

Another time I was swimming around the dock with a bunch of boat slips for the neighborhood we were living in at the time and decided I could swim from one end to another and misjudged my surface point, came swimming up fast and hard and hailed my head into the underside of the floating dock. Panicked a bit and scrambled to the side to get to the surface and came out right under a boat, then really started to freak, didn't have anything much left in me but I squeezed my face up between that boat and the dock enough to get a breath and was good after that.

 

[Fayd]

We did go to the local lakes and rivers but its worse than a swimming pool because as a kid you're scared to go to the deep part. That's how I picked up that phobia of not having my feet touching the ground. At least with a pool you have the side to grab onto to keep yourself afloat as you try to catch your breath.

why do you need a side to grab onto to catch your breath?

human beings float pretty well.

 

[TheNinja]

Did you yell "Mom...mom...look what I can do...no hands!!!" before you tried it?

 

[ViviTheMage]

Growing up we didn't have a pool or know anyone with a pool. We were also poor so paying for access to a pool and swimming lessons was a no-go.

free lakes ...

OP makes me feel weird.