Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Do You Know What Drowning Really Looks Like?

A Repost from http://drbenkim.com/signs-of-drowning.htm


Note from Ben Kim: Many thanks to Mario Vittone for graciously giving me permission to share this valuable article with our readership. Please read through Mario's article below and consider sharing this information with family and friends.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. "I think he thinks you're drowning," the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. "We're fine, what is he doing?" she asked, a little annoyed. "We're fine!" the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. "Move!" he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, "Daddy!"
How did this captain know - from fifty feet away - what the father couldn't recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, "Daddy," she hadn't made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.
The Instinctive Drowning Response - so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) - of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning - Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard's On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
(Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006 (page 14))
This doesn't mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn't in real trouble - they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn't last long - but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.
Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:
  • Head low in the water, mouth at water level
  • Head tilted back with mouth open
  • Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
  • Eyes closed
  • Hair over forehead or eyes
  • Not using legs - Vertical
  • Hyperventilating or gasping
  • Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
  • Trying to roll over on the back
  • Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder
So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK, don't be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don't look like they're drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, "Are you alright?" If they can answer at all, they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
(See a video of the Instinctive Drowning Response)
About the Author
A native of Bowie, Maryland, Mario Vittone joined the Navy in 1983. After almost two years of avionics training, he was assigned as ship’s company on the USS Coral Sea, a WWII era aircraft carrier, where he spent five years as an airborne RADAR technician. Joining the Coast Guard in 1991 he was assigned as permanent party at Training Center Cape May before transferring to the Cutter Point Franklin as a helmsman and small boat coxswain. He graduated from Helicopter Rescue Swimmer School in 1994 and began his career as a rescue swimmer with two tours at Air Station Elizabeth City, one at Air Station New Orleans, then finally as an instructor and course developer at the Aviation Technical Training Center in Elizabeth City, NC
Mario is one of the services leading experts on immersion hypothermia, drowning, sea survival, and safety at sea. His writing has appeared in Yachting Magazine, SaltWater Sportsman, MotorBoating Magazine, Lifelines, On-Scene, and Reader’s Digest. He has lectured extensively to business leaders, educators, and the military on team motivation, performance, innovation, mission focus, and generational diversity. In 2007, he was named as the Coast Guard Active Duty Enlisted Person of the Year and was named as the 2009 recipient of the Alex Haley Award for Journalism.
You can visit Mario's website by clicking here: MarioVittone.com

Friday, September 2, 2011

Shanghai 2011

Hubby had to take a short trip to Shanghai last August 16-18th for some business and he invited me to tag along for the trip.  What a sweet husband!  And when I go to Shanghai with hubby, you can be sure that the food we eat will definitely be good.  Here are some photos that I took from our quick trip.

Took the Maglev from the airport to our hotel:



See how fast it can go!
Dinner on our first night was at a Taiwanese restaurant that only served set menus.  The food was beautifully presented and quite delicious.  Hubby and I ordered different items from the menu so we could taste more variety, but I only took photos of the interesting ones.  I was also too full to take note of everything that we ate :)

the salad

the soup

the steak

the dessert
Plus another dessert!
The next day, after watching the Shanghai Acrobatic Show, we went to look for a small restaurant that was featured in Shanghai's City Weekend Magazine.  Apparently it serves one of the best ramens in town.


The place is called Kota's Kitchen.  The place was really small and out of the way, but was packed even at 10pm.

While waiting for our food to arrive, we were served some fresh vegetables with dipping sauce and cold towels to freshen up.

The place was decorated with Beatles posters and only played Beatles music.

And here's the special ramen.
The soup was really rich, noodles were cooked just right and it was really filling.  But i enjoyed their Yakitori sticks (grilled meats) more.


On our final day, we wanted to try getting into the China Pavilion at the Expo Grounds, but the line up was still really long.  So here we are outside taking another shot of what we saw last year:




For our final lunch before leaving for the airport, we stopped by a Hongkong restaurant along the road and was surprised by how big and how packed the place was.  It probably can seat about 300 people and there was still a line-up at the entrance.  Good thing we came in before the lunch crowd started arriving.


Fried rice with abalone sauce - really yummy!

Interesting way of serving Iced Milk Tea.  The ice is only placed inside the bucket, this way the drink will not be diluted as the ice melts.  Really authentic milk tea, loved it!
Fried chicken with vegetables

Another shot of the delicious fried rice.  I can still taste it in my mind...

Thanks hubby for letting me tag along on this trip.  It was great to spend some "alone" time with you and catch up with each other.  Love you!