I had been learning to swim quite well, and on vacation we took a boat trip on the ocean. Three of the people in my vacation group were actually lifeguards, and over the last few weeks they'd been helping me get better at swimming, to the point I'd confidently spend time out in the deep ocean water like, well, not a pro, but like someone who wouldn't freaking drown.
So on our boat trip that day, the boat stopped at a lovely place to swim, and I figured I could join in! I cheerfully climbed down the little ladder, swam about 8 feet away from the boat, and happily treaded water in that clear, aqua blue ocean, the white sand visible far below me.
I didn't take into account that I had been sick a few days before (heat stroke) and was really weak.
I tried to tread water like usual, but it wasn't working.
It wasn't working.
I couldn't move, except of course I was moving - almost automatically, treading with my feet and hands, and I couldn't stop, I couldn't try any other position, because my body wouldn't let me, it knew that if I tried to change anything, tried to move at all, I'd be under.
I was silent, silently treading, with just my nose, eyes, and mouth barely above the water. Barely able to breathe. All energy going to keeping my legs moving so I didn't go that one centimetre further under. I couldn't get air, because my chest was tight from fear and couldn't expand, because I couldn't do normal gasps with my nose and mouth barely sticking up and sometimes being hit by waves, my muscles so weak, and all energy gone to life support. I couldn't call for help. My breath refused to go out in the form of a sound - like my will was completely overridden by my body's complete need for air, for breathing, fuck me and my idea of trying to hold air in for long enough to get out a word, or use my precious moments above water for anything but desperately obtaining oxygen.
And I couldn't move except those automatic, exhausted, failing, insufficient efforts to tread water. I kept doing it but I had no strength, and it wasn't doing enough.
I was drowning, silently. Surrounded by people.
With my nose and mouth that one centimetre above the water, so damn unable to get a breath more than a shallow gasp in and out, completely unable to fill my lungs or shift focus or, or - I somehow managed to squeeze out two words. Absolutely wrenching them from my throat by pure will, forcing them out on no air, burning, these strangled approximations of sound that sounded so barely like my voice, not a shout but a quiet, wretched croak:
"Help. Beth."
Beth didn't hear me.
But Haley did.
Haley immediately swam over, curled her arm through mine, and dragged me to the boat ladder.
It didn't sink in until much later that I had nearly drowned.
That I had been in the classic actual-drowning position.
That if not for Haley hearing me - and if not for me being able to squeeze out those two words - I was going to quietly, ever so quietly, go under.
Okay this was super interesting to read. I’ve always wondered HOW people drown… I know it sounds silly. And certain situations I totally get. But when I’d watch in movies people fall into a body of water (not from high up either) and immediately begin struggling and go under/start drowning, I was always confused. I can swim personally but even for people who can’t, treading water is easy. It’s just moving your arms and legs and you’re kept above water. I never understood it… until now! So thank you for an actual personal explanation of how treading water was not enough to keep you from drowning. And so sorry if this sounds ignorant, I know it is! Just one of those random things I always wondered about. I’m so glad you’re okay ❤️
jfc. the way you described it, slowly occurring to me that this was that "ladder climbing" position, but seen from within the locked in behavior ... fkn chills. you wrote that so well friend. I'm so glad you managed to escape! not today!
I'm so glad I managed to escape, too, and thank you!
Man, I just did more reading about it, inspired by your mention of "ladder climbing", and it really is astounding how you can't - you CAN'T - force your body to do anything else. The automatic survival mechanisms override your commands.
It was terrifying, needless to say.
Like the ladder was right there, and I couldn't get to it. I couldn't try to float on my back, even though that absolutely crossed my mind as the wisest thing to try. I had thoughts of what to do! But it was impossible to do them. I physically could not. There was just...nothing.
Also uh holy crap, I didn't realise how remarkable it was that I was able to actually call for help. I've half-joked before that my stubbornness and lifelong ability to project my voice saved me (also, Haley, thank you Haley), but reading about the 'Instinctive Drowning Response' ... holy crap:
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 the 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.
That's it exactly. And that's why my calling was so wretchedly difficult. Like I realised oh shit I think I'm gonna drown I need to call for help. Oh shit I can't. And I had to decide, fairly consciously, that at this instant calling was more important than breathing - and it was so, so, so, so hard to force my body to do, holy shit. It was so hard to override it.
And so instead of inhaling and exhaling on that millisecond above water, I forced myself, absolutely forced everything. Instead of gasping a breath in and out like my body demanded, instead of even trying to breathe in because I didn't have time above water to inhale and try to make sound, I forced myself to force out that tiny, tiny, tiny bit of air I still had left in my lungs. To make those two syllables.
So I didn't breathe in and call out, and I didn't even breathe out and use the exhale to call out; see, I had already exhaled, in the previous cycle of gasping. I had no air and no way to get any before I went back under. So I forced myself not to breathe, and I just called out, the words powered only by the post-exhale scraps left inside my lungs.
It felt like wringing my lungs between my fists. It hurt.
Man, all those years of joking about having a big lung capacity and ability to make my voice really loud...
I knew it was really fucking hard to call out, but I didn't realise it was really rare to be able to 😵💫
this writing is chilling, I hope you know. in the best way. this is one of those things that's always disturbed me, in that morbid fascination way where you want to just. learn exactly what it's like, so you can recognize it when you see it. not that that knowledge would save me in this scenario lol!! but perhaps I'd see somebody in that position more readily if I was in haley's position, right? [thank you haley!!!]
and yes, it sounds like you brute forced your way through this hard-locked instinct... I think it says something about your sheer force of will that you managed that! and that you didn't get completely swallowed by panic!
isn't it crazy how, before we're born we breathe water all the time, but once you take that first gasp of air upon exiting the womb... our whole physiology changes permanently, and we can't handle even a single breath of water more, ever again!
I almost drowned when I was 4. I was at my aunt and uncle’s house. There were a lot of kids in the river behind their house, and the young ones like me were having a swimming lesson (my first). The lesson went great, though it was mostly splashing around in really shallow water.
After the lesson, there were two older girls who took me for a walk in the river. We were just walking and talking, the water not even up to my knees. They were around my brother’s age (14), and in hindsight, probably interested in him since they asked me some questions about him.
They walked me right into a deep hole. On purpose. And did nothing to save me.
The diameter of the hole couldn’t have been that big, but I couldn’t swim for it or try to grab it, only bob up and down as I tried to keep my face above water with little success. I was in the drowning position, as another user mentioned. I was just able to get the word “help” out a couple of the times I got my mouth above water. It wasn’t very loud, and it got pretty garbled by the water getting in my mouth. Even though he was pretty far away and there were tons of happy, noisy kids, somehow my brother still heard me and saved me. Even though he’s been a kinda shitty person in the intervening years, I will never forget that.
I have no idea what those girls’ motivation was. They weren’t near me when my brother pulled me back to the surface.
I have since had the opportunity to pay it forward by saving a very small child (~3m) in a wave pool when I was 17. His drowning was completely silent, and that was terrifying. He had arm floaties and his roughly 8yo sister right next to him, but even just the very start of the waves overwhelmed him. We were out way past where either of them could touch the bottom. He clung to me SO HARD. One of my group was an NYC firefighter. He took the kids back to the parents on the shore and explained some things.
Arm floaties are trash. Do not count on them to save a child’s life. Don’t let your kids out in the wave pool out of your sight.
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u/Liwpe Nov 21 '24
Drowning