4 thoughts on “Drowning”

  1. You don’t know how true this is. Almost every year, we see one person drown in a group of many. No one notices until the person is missing.

  2. I grew up in Holland. Lots of water. EVERYBODY KNOWS HOW TO SWIM. Even if only basic ‘floating-to-keep-alive’ swimming.
    I was stunned to hear that there are people around swimming pools and don’t know how to swim. Actually, that some people don’t know how to swim amazes me.
    My partner and I went to Hawaii (oh the memories of years past!!) and she didn’t know how to swim. I insisted she learned and she did indeed take lessons. She’s still scared of water, still doesn’t really know how to swim, but with a life jacket she’s ok now.

  3. This article is so true. A child nearly drowned in our pool–surrounded by a dozen adults. He just silently slipped underwater. Terrifying. We then made rules about how parents watched their kids in the water.

  4. Thank you, Susie — I did not know about this. And my memory of what drowning is like is way off. Guess I was in swimming seaweed distress….

    This memory of being near danger in the water was when I was in early grade school and my dad took us swimming in a manmade lake. I decided I was getting good enough to swim from the raft to the dam — but about 2/3rds way there, the seaweed grew up almost to the surface and when I got into it I felt as if it were entangling me. I was thrashing around, trying to get out. And yelling, big time, for help.

    My dad told me it was just seaweed and I should get horizontal and use my swimming skill. He said, “You can do it. It’s just seaweed. You can do it. Just keep swimming.” Over and over until I got enough control of my fear to actually swim.

    I knew I could get through seaweed after that, but I still hate the feeling of those almost tentacle-like weeds.

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