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Selects: How Drowning Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, It's Chuck. It's Saturday, and that means it's
0:03
Speaker 1: time for another Saturday select. This one is originally was
0:08
Speaker 1: originally released, and it's pretty terrifying because it's about drowning.
0:13
Speaker 1: It's actually very sad. I don't even remember if we
0:16
Speaker 1: made any jokes in this one, because drowning is frankly
0:19
Speaker 1: terrifying and probably one of the worst ways that one
0:22
Speaker 1: can die if you don't like being in a panic.
0:26
Speaker 1: So how drowning works. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know
0:34
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
0:43
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant,
0:48
Speaker 1: and Jerry's over there, so that makes this Stuff you
0:50
Speaker 1: Should Know. Hi, how are you feeling kind of upbeat? Positive? Well?
0:57
Speaker 1: I will say that this topic, I felt like I
1:01
Speaker 1: was having a panic attack researching and reading this stuff
1:05
Speaker 1: me too, Like I noticed I was. I felt like
1:08
Speaker 1: I couldn't breathe at some points. Yeah, it was, and
1:11
Speaker 1: we covered a little bit of this and Worse ways
1:13
Speaker 1: to die many years ago. But boy, oh boy, drowning
1:19
Speaker 1: is no picnic. No, it's not. And one of the
1:23
Speaker 1: things that I've always heard about drowning, is that like
1:25
Speaker 1: it was actually a very peaceful experience. I don't think
1:28
Speaker 1: that's the case. Yeah, I don't. I don't like Obviously
1:30
Speaker 1: no one can say for certain, but it doesn't seem
1:33
Speaker 1: to be no um at all, and it seems to
1:36
Speaker 1: be like, actually not a good way to go. Well, actually,
1:39
Speaker 1: I mean you probably could if you um. And this
1:42
Speaker 1: is a this is giving something away early. But one
1:45
Speaker 1: of the possible outcomes aside from death and morbidity, which
1:51
Speaker 1: is you develop an injury or disability because of what happened.
1:56
Speaker 1: Aren't you on record for hating that word morbidity? Yeah,
1:59
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't like it. Well, my apologies. Uh,
2:02
Speaker 1: and no morbidity. So you could ask someone who suffered
2:05
Speaker 1: drowning with no morbidity, like was it peaceful? And they'll
2:10
Speaker 1: probably be like nope. Well that's where I got that from.
2:14
Speaker 1: Was you know online? If you go and you got
2:16
Speaker 1: to take it all with a grain of salt, because
2:18
Speaker 1: there's plenty of fourteen year old who like to just
2:20
Speaker 1: make stuff up. But there are you know, threads on
2:24
Speaker 1: Reddit and other other places that basically are are supposedly
2:29
Speaker 1: people who have survived drowning and I didn't find any
2:33
Speaker 1: that were like it was actually very peaceful. My brain
2:36
Speaker 1: flooded with endorphins and I was ready to go into
2:38
Speaker 1: the light. Instead, it was more like, you know, I
2:41
Speaker 1: saw one that said it burned like lava, which I mean,
2:45
Speaker 1: if you think about it, you know, if you've ever
2:47
Speaker 1: had something go down the wrong pipe or whatever, how
2:50
Speaker 1: much that hurts your chest. Well, Chuck, we're here to
2:54
Speaker 1: tell everybody that what you experienced where you took a
2:58
Speaker 1: drink of coke and it went down the wrong pipe,
3:00
Speaker 1: that was not that didn't go anywhere near your lungs.
3:03
Speaker 1: That was the least of what can happen to you.
3:06
Speaker 1: And that was it just hit your epiglottis, which is
3:08
Speaker 1: that flap that converts your trichia into your esophagus. Right, yeah,
3:14
Speaker 1: that flap. That's like sometimes I want to work and
3:16
Speaker 1: sometimes I want to scare you to death. Right, but
3:19
Speaker 1: zero zero coke went into your lungs and that happened
3:23
Speaker 1: that that so imagine how bad that is. That was
3:26
Speaker 1: just your epiglotis. It actually gets way way worse when
3:30
Speaker 1: you actually are drowning. And you you said something that
3:33
Speaker 1: we really need to point out here because there's a
3:35
Speaker 1: for as long as people have been drowning, basically since
3:39
Speaker 1: people have been people, right exactly, So for as long
3:42
Speaker 1: as people have been drowning, we still have only very
3:45
Speaker 1: recently begun to make universal definitions of what drowning is. Yeah,
3:50
Speaker 1: it's two thousand two, the World Congress of Drowning. That's
3:57
Speaker 1: a thing. Then they at least had the good sense
4:00
Speaker 1: to hold it in Amsterdam at least so they could
4:04
Speaker 1: get their good time on afterwards after the meetings. They're awful.
4:09
Speaker 1: But what they did there was they decided, hey, we
4:13
Speaker 1: need to really codify this because three fifty people a
4:19
Speaker 1: year die and it's the third most common cause of
4:23
Speaker 1: accidental death around the world. So let's like really kind
4:26
Speaker 1: of classify this stuff. So everyone's on the same page
4:29
Speaker 1: moving forward, Yeah, because everyone wasn't on the same page,
4:32
Speaker 1: and actually, if you follow media reports, people still aren't
4:36
Speaker 1: on the same page. A lot of a lot of
4:39
Speaker 1: um uncleared terminology that the medical community doesn't recognize but
4:43
Speaker 1: that the media uses pretty frequently. Um, there's pretty widespread
4:48
Speaker 1: misunderstanding that drowning is not death. It's a way you
4:53
Speaker 1: can die, but it's actually a specific type of injury
4:57
Speaker 1: that starts with your epiglottis says we'll see um or
5:01
Speaker 1: your larynx. I'm sorry, but it's it's it's like an
5:06
Speaker 1: injury that can happen to you that you can die from,
5:08
Speaker 1: but you can actually have drowned and survived. Yeah, that's
5:13
Speaker 1: you know, that's very misleading because that's the the actual definition.
5:18
Speaker 1: But in in everyday parlance, if you say, you know,
5:23
Speaker 1: I went to the pool last weekend and my child drowned,
5:27
Speaker 1: and someone said, oh my god, you know another fine, right, Like,
5:31
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a very fair thing to say
5:34
Speaker 1: to to a friend. No, it's not. But if you're
5:38
Speaker 1: following the definition of the two thousand two World Congress
5:41
Speaker 1: of Drowning, that would be the right thing for you
5:44
Speaker 1: to say. Yeah, but that that kind of pedantry and
5:47
Speaker 1: just everyday conversation. You should lead by saying I had
5:51
Speaker 1: a close call. My child technically drowned according to the
5:54
Speaker 1: World Congress of Drowning, right, and then pushed through doing fine,
5:58
Speaker 1: push the glasses up your nose. It's just exactly so, um,
6:04
Speaker 1: I gave away a little bit here. With drowning, the
6:06
Speaker 1: whole process starts when water or liquid comes in contact
6:12
Speaker 1: with your larynx, your voice box. That something as far
6:17
Speaker 1: as human evolution goes, something about that filips your reptilian
6:24
Speaker 1: brain out and your your your motor takes over, like
6:30
Speaker 1: your motor instincts take over, and there's very little you
6:33
Speaker 1: can do from that point on as far as conscious
6:36
Speaker 1: thought and movement. Yeah, I mean, we'll we'll get to
6:39
Speaker 1: that last part later. But um, you're totally right, man,
6:42
Speaker 1: Like your body is trying to do one thing and
6:46
Speaker 1: that is survived this experience. Um. And like I said,
6:50
Speaker 1: we'll get in a little more of what drowning looks like.
6:52
Speaker 1: But during drowning, you're right that that first contact with
6:57
Speaker 1: water and the larynx, you have that gas initially and
7:01
Speaker 1: then you you are in charge for a short time
7:05
Speaker 1: because you try to hold your breath voluntarily, but then
7:08
Speaker 1: your larynx just starts spasm ing and Hi. Hi hypoxemia, hypoxemia,
7:16
Speaker 1: hypo xmia, hypoxemia, hypoxemia, Bet hypoxemia, No, hypoxemia, hypoxemia, That's
7:26
Speaker 1: what I said, right, Oh my god, hypoxemia. It's funny.
7:32
Speaker 1: I looked up a bunch of word pronunciations today, but
7:35
Speaker 1: that one I just flew right by it. I'll tell
7:37
Speaker 1: you when I've got down is kineta. Yeah, that's that's next. Right.
7:44
Speaker 1: How about hypoxemia? Sure, Basically what that is is dree
7:49
Speaker 1: decreased levels of oxygen in your bloodstream. So your body's
7:53
Speaker 1: trying to fight that. Right, So your larynx, whether you
7:56
Speaker 1: like it or not, your larynx has closed. You're not eathing,
8:00
Speaker 1: you're holding your breath because your larynx is trying to
8:03
Speaker 1: prevent liquid from going into your lungs. Right. And so
8:07
Speaker 1: as this is going on, you're losing oxygen concentration in
8:11
Speaker 1: your lungs. You're having a build up of c O two.
8:14
Speaker 1: And then and I got this from a reference to
8:18
Speaker 1: a passage from the book The Perfect Storm. But supposedly
8:24
Speaker 1: studies have shown that after about eighty seven seconds, your
8:30
Speaker 1: your body says, Okay, to hell with this. Um, I'm
8:33
Speaker 1: I can't spasm any longer. I'm gonna try to take
8:35
Speaker 1: a breath. If you happen to be underwater, then you've
8:40
Speaker 1: just taken in water. And now a whole different set
8:44
Speaker 1: of events is happening. Right, So you're already starting to um,
8:48
Speaker 1: to to become sluggish, to lose consciousness a little bit
8:52
Speaker 1: from that lack of oxygen because you haven't been breathing
8:54
Speaker 1: for say, the last almost minute and a half. But
8:57
Speaker 1: now you've taken in water onto your long and like
9:01
Speaker 1: I said, this this changes things and it makes it
9:03
Speaker 1: way way worse. Well yeah, and before that even happens,
9:06
Speaker 1: your body becomes something called acidotic. How would you pronounce that? Uh?
9:15
Speaker 1: That probably that way. I would actually listen to that one.
9:19
Speaker 1: That's okay, what is it? It's acidotic? Oh it is, yeah.
9:22
Speaker 1: I actually probably would have made it a long Oh yeah,
9:26
Speaker 1: no longer apparently. Okay, Well, thanks for going the extra
9:29
Speaker 1: mile on that one. Yeah, I had to make up
9:32
Speaker 1: for the last one. Um. But that's basically when like,
9:36
Speaker 1: if that happens, it can disrupt the electrical you're you're
9:40
Speaker 1: you're wiring to your heart and you could go into
9:43
Speaker 1: cardiac arrest. And that's sort of near the beginning of
9:46
Speaker 1: this process, right, So just just bookmark that, everybody, because
9:50
Speaker 1: all of this is happening before your larynx stop spasming
9:54
Speaker 1: and you open up your airway and take a deep breath,
9:58
Speaker 1: and then you're you if you have going to be
10:00
Speaker 1: underwater or your mouth is just below water level, then
10:03
Speaker 1: you've just taken in a bunch of water and your lungs.
10:07
Speaker 1: So what happens when you take water into your lungs
10:09
Speaker 1: is when you look at your um your lungs if
10:13
Speaker 1: you can, if you can just peer at your lungs
10:14
Speaker 1: everyone for a second, you're going to find that they
10:17
Speaker 1: are actually branching increasingly smaller tubes. Right. Yeah, this is
10:23
Speaker 1: like elementary school science. Like everyone learned about the bronchi,
10:27
Speaker 1: the bronchioles, that alveolas. That was all kind of elementary
10:32
Speaker 1: school stuff, right. So the point is that the in
10:35
Speaker 1: the alveolis or the alveola, the little tiny air sacks
10:39
Speaker 1: where you exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the capillaries
10:43
Speaker 1: that bring blood to your lungs, there's a little something
10:47
Speaker 1: called surfactant, and it's this chemical coating around your little
10:50
Speaker 1: tiny air sacks that allow them to open and close,
10:54
Speaker 1: which pumps the oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out. Right,
10:58
Speaker 1: it allows for gas exchange. Is a very key part
11:01
Speaker 1: of the whole system of staying alive. Yeah, because if
11:04
Speaker 1: you're surfactin isn't working, then that alveola can't or alveola
11:08
Speaker 1: list can't open or close, and so you're not breathing,
11:11
Speaker 1: because that's really where the rubber meets the road when
11:14
Speaker 1: you breathe. So if the surfactant is damaged, you can't breathe.
11:18
Speaker 1: And when you take water into your lungs, it goes
11:21
Speaker 1: to the end to those air sacks, and it, depending
11:25
Speaker 1: on the type of water, it messes with the surfactant
11:28
Speaker 1: one way or another. And all of a sudden, now
11:31
Speaker 1: you are not exchanging um oxygen and carbon dioxide, which
11:35
Speaker 1: you weren't doing very well already for the last minute
11:38
Speaker 1: and a half, but now the water is totally screwing
11:41
Speaker 1: up that jam. Well. Yeah, in the case of fresh water,
11:43
Speaker 1: and this is something I didn't know. It is different
11:46
Speaker 1: depending on saltwater or fresh water. But freshwater, if you're
11:49
Speaker 1: in a swimming pool or a lake or something, it
11:51
Speaker 1: actually destroys that surfactant and the alveoli collapse, right, they're
11:57
Speaker 1: just kind of destroyed. Uh. And salt water, uh, it
12:00
Speaker 1: actually doesn't destroy this refactant, but it washes it away,
12:03
Speaker 1: which to me is sort of like splitting hairs. It
12:08
Speaker 1: makes this afactant um it doesn't work anymore, no matter
12:12
Speaker 1: which way slice it right exactly, And so there's UM
12:16
Speaker 1: A couple of different. Two real differences between taking in
12:20
Speaker 1: freshwater and taking in salt water in your looks because
12:23
Speaker 1: fresh water bears a pretty strong resemblance to the water
12:27
Speaker 1: in your body and specifically in your blood. When that
12:30
Speaker 1: water enters your lungs, it actually passes very easily from
12:34
Speaker 1: your lungs into your bloodstream. And so what happens is
12:38
Speaker 1: the the dilution, the concentration of water in your blood.
12:43
Speaker 1: Um it becomes overrun with water. So where you end up.
12:48
Speaker 1: I saw apparently one World War two study found that
12:52
Speaker 1: people's blood or animals blood, which I hate to think
12:56
Speaker 1: of how they found this out, you know how they
12:58
Speaker 1: found that out. But animals blood within three minutes had
13:01
Speaker 1: an equal part of water and blood or whatever is
13:06
Speaker 1: not water in the blood within three minutes, which is
13:09
Speaker 1: way more of a dilution than we normally have. So
13:13
Speaker 1: you've gone from not breathing very well because you're holding
13:16
Speaker 1: your breath to suddenly not only are you not exchanging air,
13:19
Speaker 1: your blood is diluted within like three minutes. In a
13:22
Speaker 1: fresh water drowning, Yeah, you're really disrupting the balance of
13:27
Speaker 1: of your blood and the water in your body. Everything
13:30
Speaker 1: is just thrown out of whack. And then with saltwater,
13:33
Speaker 1: something else different happens to um. You're that that saltiness
13:37
Speaker 1: in the water in your lungs actually draws water out
13:41
Speaker 1: of your blood, so that your blood becomes more concentrated
13:44
Speaker 1: rather than more dilute if you drown in saltwater. The
13:47
Speaker 1: upshot of all of this is you are in big
13:49
Speaker 1: trouble once water hits your lungs. Yeah, in the case
13:52
Speaker 1: of saltwater again in three minutes, and you know what's
13:56
Speaker 1: happening to the animals because they called it experimental animals,
14:00
Speaker 1: so in other words, they drowned animals. I was hoping
14:04
Speaker 1: to dance around that, but yeah, that's what they did.
14:07
Speaker 1: That's the reality. In three minutes with salt water, experimental
14:10
Speaker 1: animals lost of their normal normal water volume in their blood. Yeah,
14:15
Speaker 1: it's just thickened, which can't feel good. The thing is
14:19
Speaker 1: is it took it takes, like from what I saw,
14:22
Speaker 1: eight minutes to die. This is actually as as bad
14:24
Speaker 1: as that sounds, this is actually a less quickly fatal
14:28
Speaker 1: process than what happens to you with fresh water in
14:31
Speaker 1: your lungs. But get this, chuck, here's where drowning gets
14:35
Speaker 1: really odd. You can die of drowning without a single
14:40
Speaker 1: drop of water ever touching your lungs. That sounds like
14:46
Speaker 1: a good place to take a break. Oh are we
14:48
Speaker 1: going to cliffhanger this? It's just mamma, jamma, I think
14:51
Speaker 1: we should hang it off the cliff. Okay, let's do it,
14:53
Speaker 1: all right, We'll be right back. M h man, Chuck,
15:16
Speaker 1: good call, because even I'm like a little on the
15:18
Speaker 1: edge of my seat and I know it's coming next
15:20
Speaker 1: and you know how this thing ends. Yeah, uh yeah,
15:23
Speaker 1: well you're exactly right. You don't have to uh like
15:29
Speaker 1: that can happen, but to drown and die, you don't
15:32
Speaker 1: need to be the TV or movie drowning where you're
15:36
Speaker 1: where you're floating in the water, you're fully submerged. You
15:39
Speaker 1: went down with the ship or something like that. Yeah,
15:42
Speaker 1: I mean there's They used to call it dry drowning
15:44
Speaker 1: in the media. They still call it dry drowning. It
15:47
Speaker 1: was coined in the nineteen seventies. But those are drowning
15:51
Speaker 1: deaths in which the larynx spasmed from exposure to water,
15:55
Speaker 1: but they died from asphyxiation. No water entered the lungs,
15:59
Speaker 1: And it's very it makes sense to call it dry drowning.
16:02
Speaker 1: But the CDC and everyone else basically said this, this
16:06
Speaker 1: is just drowning. It's drowning. Just because there's not water
16:09
Speaker 1: in your lungs doesn't mean you didn't drown, right, because
16:12
Speaker 1: whether it's the water in your lungs or the um,
16:15
Speaker 1: the fact that you haven't been breathing, you're dying from asphyxiation.
16:19
Speaker 1: And it's a water related asphyxiation, right, correct. But it
16:23
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be water in your lungs. But that
16:25
Speaker 1: happens to something like ten to twenty people who um
16:29
Speaker 1: who die of drowning. They don't have any any water
16:33
Speaker 1: in their lungs whatsoever. They just they die before their
16:35
Speaker 1: layering stopped spasm ing. Yeah, and there's there have been
16:38
Speaker 1: some really sad cases, this one, this reference in the
16:41
Speaker 1: article you sent just last year. In two thousand seventeen,
16:45
Speaker 1: a four year old boy in Texas was knocked over
16:47
Speaker 1: by wave just playing out in the ocean like knee
16:50
Speaker 1: deep in water. His head did go under for a
16:54
Speaker 1: few seconds, but dad brings him out of the water.
16:57
Speaker 1: The kid recovers, he gets smell on the butt and
17:00
Speaker 1: goes off in plays and everything seems fine over the
17:04
Speaker 1: next few days, he um. They think he has his
17:06
Speaker 1: stomach flu. He complains of a pain in his shoulder,
17:10
Speaker 1: and the parents did not get him to the doctor
17:11
Speaker 1: fast enough and he died in his sleep. And then
17:15
Speaker 1: doctors found a very small amount of water in his lungs. Yeah,
17:18
Speaker 1: apparently it doesn't take much something like um. The most
17:22
Speaker 1: drowning victims have something like four ccs per kilogram of
17:25
Speaker 1: water in their lungs. So if you're a kid who
17:28
Speaker 1: weighs fifty pounds, that's three ounces of water. Right to
17:32
Speaker 1: die from that, right, But the thing that scared everybody,
17:36
Speaker 1: scared of but Jesus side of parents everywhere about this
17:38
Speaker 1: poor kid named Frankie Delgado. Um, he died like days
17:43
Speaker 1: after he had his drowning incident. Right, No one knew
17:46
Speaker 1: that could happen. And this is one of the ways
17:49
Speaker 1: the media is not helping things. They call this dry
17:51
Speaker 1: drowning too. That was never even called dry drowning. This
17:54
Speaker 1: one is called secondary drowning. But again, if you go
17:57
Speaker 1: to like the c d C or the World Health Organization,
17:59
Speaker 1: they're like those those don't exist. Stop calling them that.
18:02
Speaker 1: It's it's drowning and you can actually die of drowning
18:07
Speaker 1: days afterward. But the thing that was really misreported about
18:11
Speaker 1: Frankie Delgado and then other kids like him, is that
18:14
Speaker 1: it gives the impression that, you know, Dad picked him up,
18:17
Speaker 1: spanked him on the bottom, and he went along his
18:20
Speaker 1: way and he was totally fine. Then all of a
18:22
Speaker 1: sudden drops dead three days later. That's not how it works. You.
18:26
Speaker 1: The kids starts, their health starts to decline. And usually
18:30
Speaker 1: in cases where this is happening, where it's like a
18:33
Speaker 1: delayed drowning death, um, they their health declines very obviously
18:39
Speaker 1: within two or three hours of the incident, and it's
18:43
Speaker 1: really bad. It's like they become sluggish because they're becoming hypoxic. Um.
18:48
Speaker 1: They throw up a lot, they vomit a lot, they
18:51
Speaker 1: might defecate themselves. Um, they just their behavior changes. It's
18:56
Speaker 1: very obvious that something's very wrong with them. But the
18:58
Speaker 1: problem is his most pay and don't say, oh yeah,
19:01
Speaker 1: my kid took in some water in the pool. It's
19:04
Speaker 1: a day before and they don't think to to They
19:07
Speaker 1: just think, like Frankie Delgado's parents did, that it's a
19:10
Speaker 1: stomach bug or something like that, when in fact they're
19:12
Speaker 1: actually dying from drowning right in front of their very eyes. Yeah,
19:15
Speaker 1: it's like the the head injury that you die of
19:18
Speaker 1: a week later, um, because of whatever, some kind of
19:22
Speaker 1: internal hemorrhaging that you don't even know what's going on. Right, Yeah,
19:26
Speaker 1: it is very much like that Liam Neeson's wife, right, yes, right,
19:30
Speaker 1: is she died in like a ski accident, right, Yeah,
19:32
Speaker 1: Natasha Richardson and I I didn't look it up, but
19:35
Speaker 1: I know it was. It was not that day, oh,
19:38
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I don't know how many days
19:40
Speaker 1: later it was. But the same kind of thing where, um,
19:44
Speaker 1: there's a there's something going on in the body because
19:46
Speaker 1: of an incident that you don't realize that's going on.
19:49
Speaker 1: And in uh, in this kid's case, I think his
19:52
Speaker 1: uh he had a dimon Right, his lung tissues started
19:56
Speaker 1: um swelling, right swell, and they could no longer like
20:00
Speaker 1: collapse a little a v ol collapse that the gas
20:02
Speaker 1: exchange wasn't going on, and so he had a decrease
20:05
Speaker 1: in oxygen and an increase in CEO two. And that's
20:08
Speaker 1: what you ultimately die from from drowning, right, right. But
20:11
Speaker 1: you can also get injured. Um. Brain damage is usually
20:16
Speaker 1: the major complication. If you don't die from drowning um,
20:20
Speaker 1: you can have that tissue damage in your lungs. You
20:23
Speaker 1: can get pneumonia or something called a r D S
20:26
Speaker 1: Acute respiratory distress syndrome. Right, And there's also usually a
20:32
Speaker 1: coat well not usually, but it's frequently. There's a code
20:34
Speaker 1: morbidity with a drowning um, which is like a head
20:38
Speaker 1: or neck injury, a spinal injury that if you dive
20:42
Speaker 1: into the shallow, into the pool and you break your neck,
20:44
Speaker 1: you're gonna start drowning like immediately because you just lost
20:47
Speaker 1: consciousness and you're underwater. Um So there's, as we'll see
20:52
Speaker 1: in talking about treating drowning, you want to you want
20:55
Speaker 1: to be aware that there's a good possibility that the
20:58
Speaker 1: person's neck is not quite right. Um. So here's one
21:03
Speaker 1: other thing that I knew before, but I had learned
21:06
Speaker 1: at one point and it really opened my eyes. Every
21:10
Speaker 1: every representation of drowning I've ever seen in any movie,
21:14
Speaker 1: on every TV show, in every book, in every song
21:17
Speaker 1: about drowning, there they got it wrong. It's just wrong.
21:23
Speaker 1: It doesn't look anything like what we've all been led
21:26
Speaker 1: to believe. It looks like or sounds like, well, yeah,
21:30
Speaker 1: I mean that is true if you are actually drowning.
21:34
Speaker 1: But what you're talking about that you usually see in
21:36
Speaker 1: the movies if they end up getting pulled out of
21:38
Speaker 1: water and they're fine. It's just called aquatic distress. So
21:42
Speaker 1: when you're splashing around and yelling, you aren't drowning at
21:46
Speaker 1: that point. No, you're you could call it pre drowning. Yeah,
21:50
Speaker 1: it's aquatic distress. That means you're you can't swim, you're panicking,
21:54
Speaker 1: and you feel like I'm in big trouble. So you're
21:57
Speaker 1: waving your arms and screaming when you actually start drowning. Uh.
22:00
Speaker 1: This guy named Francesco a Pa he's a PhD. He
22:05
Speaker 1: defined what's called the instinctive drowning response, which is nothing
22:08
Speaker 1: like you see in the movies. It's very quiet, and
22:11
Speaker 1: your body, like we mentioned earlier, your body's instinct kicks
22:14
Speaker 1: into gear and it's not trying to wait for help
22:18
Speaker 1: or yell. It's just trying to survive and get another
22:22
Speaker 1: breath and keep that face above water right. It's it's
22:27
Speaker 1: like all hands are on deck to keep your you
22:29
Speaker 1: upright in the water. That's literally all hands are on deck.
22:32
Speaker 1: If the deck is the water, right, you know, Yeah, no,
22:36
Speaker 1: that's true. That's why I said it. So the thing is, though, Chuck,
22:40
Speaker 1: with that aquatic distress thing, it doesn't always precede drowning
22:45
Speaker 1: so much so that drowning can come on without aquatic distress,
22:49
Speaker 1: and people are so conditioned to think of drowning as
22:52
Speaker 1: aquatic distress or vice versa, that there's This is about
22:56
Speaker 1: the most heartbreaking thing I've ever heard. There are kids
22:59
Speaker 1: who will d rown. A substantial amount of kids who
23:02
Speaker 1: drowned drown within twenty five yards of a parent or
23:05
Speaker 1: whoever is supposed to be watching them, and a significant
23:09
Speaker 1: portion of those kids drown with the parent or or
23:13
Speaker 1: supervising adult actually watching them drown and not realizing what
23:17
Speaker 1: they're seeing because it doesn't look like what they think
23:20
Speaker 1: drowning looks like. I wouldn't overstated, but yeah, ten percent
23:26
Speaker 1: of the parents actually watched this happening, right, So this
23:29
Speaker 1: is this is what drowning looks like. Right. If you
23:32
Speaker 1: you're not going to once the once drowning starts, if
23:35
Speaker 1: you've gone through aquatic distress, once the drowning starts, you
23:41
Speaker 1: are um. You have your head, your mouth is about
23:44
Speaker 1: at water level, and you can't call out for help
23:47
Speaker 1: because there's one of two things going on. Either you
23:51
Speaker 1: are trying to catch your breath every time your mouth
23:54
Speaker 1: comes above water, and it's happening so infrequently that all
23:58
Speaker 1: you can do is gun inhaling and exhaling, or your
24:03
Speaker 1: larynx is spasm ng and you're not breathing at all.
24:06
Speaker 1: And if you're not breathing at all, you you obviously
24:09
Speaker 1: physiologically can't shout or speak or do anything. But either way,
24:13
Speaker 1: you're not UM. You're not able to shout or yell
24:18
Speaker 1: or call for help or say anything. Yeah. I mean
24:21
Speaker 1: the way I read it though, is it's not like
24:22
Speaker 1: you're working on breathing. You have no choice in the matter. Yeah,
24:26
Speaker 1: Like your body has taken over and it's not like
24:28
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I need to get my breath. You're you.
24:31
Speaker 1: You may want to yell, right, but your body is
24:34
Speaker 1: saying no. Breathing is speech is secondary in this whole situation.
24:39
Speaker 1: We need we need to get you to breathe yep,
24:41
Speaker 1: and then UM. Very similarly, your body you're not and
24:47
Speaker 1: you can't control your arms any longer. Whatever you want
24:50
Speaker 1: to do with your arms, you can't all you can
24:52
Speaker 1: do is kind of flap at the water, and the
24:56
Speaker 1: whole point of that is to keep your head above water,
24:59
Speaker 1: is which as possible. One thing that I saw chuck
25:02
Speaker 1: that I don't know if you've figured out. I can't
25:04
Speaker 1: figure it out. But one of the things about the
25:07
Speaker 1: instinctive drowning responses, you're not kicking, you're just using your arms.
25:12
Speaker 1: I don't get that at all. Yeah, I mean, it
25:17
Speaker 1: says no evidence of a supporting kick. I'm I don't
25:20
Speaker 1: know about that. It just seems weird that your body
25:22
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like, oh yeah, let's get the legs in
25:24
Speaker 1: on this too, and maybe that'll actually help keep us
25:27
Speaker 1: above water. That's kind of the most important part of
25:30
Speaker 1: treading water. I wonder also if it if it's because
25:34
Speaker 1: as you're you're getting a lower concentration of oxygen and
25:38
Speaker 1: you're becoming a little more sluggish. Kicking your legs is
25:42
Speaker 1: actually harder than flapping your arms, so you just can't,
25:46
Speaker 1: like your muscles won't do it. I don't know, it's weird.
25:49
Speaker 1: It seems like that would be part of that natural
25:51
Speaker 1: instinct um. I would think so too. But another part
25:56
Speaker 1: of the fact that you can't control your arms. Is
25:58
Speaker 1: that if somebody holds a pole out right in front
26:02
Speaker 1: of your hand, you can't say hand grab pole. Um,
26:07
Speaker 1: you can't grab like a lifesaver ring Like there's you.
26:10
Speaker 1: You can't do anything but flap your arms up and down.
26:13
Speaker 1: And you're not doing that. Your your body has taken over.
26:16
Speaker 1: And this is this instinctive response that dr P is
26:19
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, and when they say you're not using
26:21
Speaker 1: your legs, that you're completely vertical in water, Um, I
26:26
Speaker 1: don't know. That's the part that doesn't make sense to me.
26:28
Speaker 1: You can still be vertical in water and like you know,
26:31
Speaker 1: dreading water and kicking. Yeah, I don't understand it either. Yeah,
26:35
Speaker 1: maybe someone can fill us in on that one. So um,
26:39
Speaker 1: this this whole instinctive drowning response. Supposedly the most people
26:45
Speaker 1: can last between twenty and sixty seconds of doing this
26:48
Speaker 1: basically bobbing and using every bit of your strength to
26:53
Speaker 1: to get your mouth above water. But eventually you start
26:56
Speaker 1: to lose that battle and your mouth comes above water
27:00
Speaker 1: and less frequently, and then eventually you you were submerged.
27:03
Speaker 1: And if you are if you see somebody whose head
27:07
Speaker 1: is low in the water and they um, their mouth
27:11
Speaker 1: is is at water level and their eyes are closed,
27:15
Speaker 1: or they're just kind of blank and glassy, or their
27:18
Speaker 1: hair is over their eyes. You're looking at drowning person
27:22
Speaker 1: and you want to help them. Yeah. I thought that
27:24
Speaker 1: hair over the eyes was interesting because there must be
27:27
Speaker 1: just an immediate response when you get out of the
27:31
Speaker 1: water to wipe the hair from your eyes. Think about
27:33
Speaker 1: how annoying it is. What's gotta be it. So if
27:38
Speaker 1: you see someone come out like the creature of the
27:41
Speaker 1: Black Lagoon, that's not a good sign. Yep. If they're
27:44
Speaker 1: gasping and they're doing this, that's another one too. If
27:48
Speaker 1: they're trying to swim but they're not actually moving anywhere really,
27:52
Speaker 1: or if they're trying to roll over on their back
27:54
Speaker 1: and they're unsuccessful, these are all signs of drowning. Yeah.
27:57
Speaker 1: I mean that was a lifeguard for a few years,
27:59
Speaker 1: and it's Um, I think you're and they tell you
28:02
Speaker 1: in class. You know that you're used to the movies,
28:05
Speaker 1: and um, you got to really keep your eyes out.
28:07
Speaker 1: You can't just be flirting with the girls, oh yeah,
28:11
Speaker 1: waiting for someone to yell and scream because they're kicking
28:14
Speaker 1: in in aquatic distress. You have to keep your eyes peel.
28:18
Speaker 1: A good lifeguard is very vigilant. Well, I remember hearing
28:21
Speaker 1: that that. Like, you know, when they interview most lifeguards about,
28:24
Speaker 1: you know, somebody who drowned in their pool, They're like,
28:26
Speaker 1: they had no idea, They were there a second and
28:29
Speaker 1: then they were gone and I didn't even notice. It
28:31
Speaker 1: didn't make a sound, you know. So yeah, you just
28:34
Speaker 1: hit the nail and have whether you're a lifeguard or
28:36
Speaker 1: whether you're a mom or dad or oh pair or whoever. Um,
28:42
Speaker 1: your focus has to be on the person in the
28:44
Speaker 1: pool that you're you're in charge of. Should we take
28:48
Speaker 1: a break, Yeah, all right, we'll come back. We'll talk
28:51
Speaker 1: about what to do and how to treat a drowning
28:54
Speaker 1: victim if you are so unlucky. All right, so let's
29:19
Speaker 1: say someone has drowned. Um, let's just say you're at
29:21
Speaker 1: a pool, just to make this easy, because that's kind
29:24
Speaker 1: of best case scenario. Because it's contained, there is usually
29:29
Speaker 1: some sort of rescue equipment on hand. Um, it's not
29:32
Speaker 1: like you're on the beach and you're like, I need
29:35
Speaker 1: a defibrillator. Yeah, most pools have this kind of stuff. Now,
29:38
Speaker 1: Plus you can also see the bottom. There's not usually
29:41
Speaker 1: like an underwater hazard or and sure like that, it
29:43
Speaker 1: is about a best case scenario. Yeah, so the h A,
29:47
Speaker 1: the American Heart Association said that, UM, if possible, like
29:51
Speaker 1: if you're not by yourself, do the do the common
29:54
Speaker 1: sense thing, which is to send one person for help
29:56
Speaker 1: or to call nine one one. Uh. These days with
29:59
Speaker 1: phones every where, it's it's I'm sure increased response times.
30:03
Speaker 1: But uh. And if you have a defibrillator, go get
30:06
Speaker 1: that thing or have you know, have your have your
30:09
Speaker 1: buddy do it, bring it to the victim's side. UM,
30:12
Speaker 1: assess the situation like are they breathing, do they have
30:15
Speaker 1: a pulse? Uh? And this is one of the few
30:17
Speaker 1: situations they point out where because I know we covered
30:21
Speaker 1: CPR and the hands only CPR is kind of what's
30:23
Speaker 1: recommended now, but that is not the case with drowning. No,
30:27
Speaker 1: apparently you still want to do mouth to mouth is
30:29
Speaker 1: how I took that right? Yeah? I think so, which
30:31
Speaker 1: has never made sense to me, because if you're blowing
30:34
Speaker 1: into somebody's mouth, aren't you blowing carbon dioxide into their body?
30:39
Speaker 1: What's the point of that? Is it just to get
30:41
Speaker 1: the lungs opening and closing. I don't know. Maybe I've
30:45
Speaker 1: never understood that, Yeah, because I don't think it's I
30:48
Speaker 1: think that's the case. Like it's not saying your body
30:51
Speaker 1: needs CEO two. I think if your lungs need to
30:54
Speaker 1: be expanding and contracting. It's been a while though since
30:58
Speaker 1: I lifeguarded. Yeah, but I mean, and it used to
31:02
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, you do chest compressions in the mouth
31:04
Speaker 1: to mouth, and then they said no, just do chess compressions.
31:06
Speaker 1: So I was surprised to see that with drowning there
31:09
Speaker 1: like do both. They're back with that, and then also,
31:12
Speaker 1: don't forget while you're doing all this, keep in mind
31:15
Speaker 1: that the person's neck might need to be supported or
31:18
Speaker 1: kept at a certain straight angle. Um, because they may
31:22
Speaker 1: have injured themselves that may have caused the drowning to
31:25
Speaker 1: begin with. Yeah, like if they dove in or whatever. Right,
31:29
Speaker 1: so if they're breathing but they're not awake, then roll
31:33
Speaker 1: them over on their side, because you know they might
31:36
Speaker 1: vomit and and affixiate that way, which, um, you know
31:40
Speaker 1: the way Bond Scott went out, and I believe some
31:43
Speaker 1: other rock stars have gone out that way, John Bonham,
31:46
Speaker 1: Janice Choplin. Oh did they all affixiate? From vomit. Yeah, really,
31:56
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was just trying to think of
31:59
Speaker 1: musicians least likely to asphyxiate on his own vomit. Well
32:03
Speaker 1: I think that's uh Benny Goodman, Yeah yeah, yeah, although
32:08
Speaker 1: he parted, did he? I'm just speaking contrary. Okay, we
32:14
Speaker 1: have to lightnessing up a little bit, right. I know,
32:16
Speaker 1: it's it's hard looking for jokes in here. It's tough.
32:19
Speaker 1: So let's see. You've got somebody who's breathing but but unconscious.
32:25
Speaker 1: Roll them on their side. Uh, somebody who's not breathing
32:29
Speaker 1: and doesn't have a pulse. You do CPR. You want
32:32
Speaker 1: them the e m s to get there as fast
32:36
Speaker 1: as possible, but CPR for you know, whether it's a
32:38
Speaker 1: heart attack or whether it's a drowning. If you can
32:41
Speaker 1: do CPR, you can prolong the amount of time it
32:46
Speaker 1: takes for the e m s to get there. You're
32:49
Speaker 1: just staving off like irreversible damage by by doing it
32:53
Speaker 1: at the very least. Chess compressions. Yeah, absolutely so. One
32:57
Speaker 1: thing that um I did not know that I ran
33:00
Speaker 1: across Chuck is there's actually a tremendous amount of racial
33:04
Speaker 1: disparities when it comes to drowning. Um, there are far
33:10
Speaker 1: greater numbers of African Americans and this is the US
33:15
Speaker 1: strictly African Americans and then Native Americans and Alaskan Natives
33:21
Speaker 1: who drown compared to white kids. And depending on the
33:26
Speaker 1: venue in the age group, it can actually get shocking
33:29
Speaker 1: how how great the difference is. Yeah, between the age
33:33
Speaker 1: range of eleven to twelve years old, UM, African Americans
33:38
Speaker 1: drowned in swimming pools ten times the rate of white
33:41
Speaker 1: kids ten times. And this is something I did know
33:46
Speaker 1: because the pool I lifeguarded, where a lifeguarded for three years,
33:50
Speaker 1: was majority African American kids. And they, you know, we
33:56
Speaker 1: got not special training, but we got um we were
34:00
Speaker 1: told that by the lifeguard company. Like it was a
34:02
Speaker 1: huge lifeguard company that supplied lifeguards all over the city exactly.
34:08
Speaker 1: So at my pool and pools like that, they you know,
34:10
Speaker 1: we had little breakout sessions for us. We were like, hey, listen,
34:14
Speaker 1: it is a systemic thing in this country where little
34:17
Speaker 1: black kids don't learn how to swim as often. And
34:21
Speaker 1: you know, the CDC has done studies and there's a
34:24
Speaker 1: professor in Montana named Jeff Whilst who wrote Contested Waters
34:28
Speaker 1: Colon a social history of swimming pools in America, and
34:32
Speaker 1: it all makes perfect sense because of discrimination and segregation.
34:36
Speaker 1: When swimming pools and recreational swimming and sports swimming started
34:40
Speaker 1: to come around, these black families couldn't go to the pools,
34:43
Speaker 1: so they didn't take swim lessons, they didn't learn how
34:45
Speaker 1: to swim. If your grandparents didn't learn how to swim,
34:48
Speaker 1: then there, what is it like? I think they even
34:50
Speaker 1: have a stat you have a thirteen percent chance to
34:54
Speaker 1: take swimming lessons and learn how to swim if your
34:57
Speaker 1: parents did not, only a thirteen p sent chance, right,
35:01
Speaker 1: So it's just passed down. Yeah, And it's just odd
35:04
Speaker 1: that it coincided where a surge and popularity of pools
35:09
Speaker 1: and swimming in America coincided with two of the um
35:14
Speaker 1: times when segregation was most strictly enforced in America, to
35:17
Speaker 1: the twenties and thirties and the fifties and sixties, and
35:19
Speaker 1: so yeah, as a result, African Americans missed out on swimming,
35:24
Speaker 1: and and it's intergenerational and passed down still to this day. Um,
35:29
Speaker 1: among African American families, not all of them obviously, but um,
35:33
Speaker 1: there are plenty out there who are like, I don't
35:35
Speaker 1: know how to swim, and I'm very much afraid that
35:37
Speaker 1: if I get you near a pool, you're going to drown.
35:41
Speaker 1: So I don't even want you taking swimming lessons because
35:43
Speaker 1: I don't want to mess with that kind of thing.
35:46
Speaker 1: And so, like you said, it becomes intergenerational. Yeah, and
35:49
Speaker 1: there are plenty of programs now, thankfully. Uh and even
35:52
Speaker 1: when I was lifeguarding, you know, a thousand years ago, um,
35:55
Speaker 1: plenty of programs to try and give reduced rate or
35:59
Speaker 1: free swimming less in communities like that and basically get
36:02
Speaker 1: every get everyone trained up swimming lessons. Help. It is
36:06
Speaker 1: one of the ways to prevent drownings is knowing how
36:09
Speaker 1: to swim. Yeah, it sounds like a no brainer, it does.
36:12
Speaker 1: But you can drown even when you can swim. So
36:14
Speaker 1: that's the reason they point out that one of the
36:17
Speaker 1: best ways to prevent drowning is learning how to swim, right,
36:20
Speaker 1: it is. But they also make a very big point
36:25
Speaker 1: if once your kid knows how to swim, you can't
36:27
Speaker 1: just be like, oh, you're fine, you go to the
36:28
Speaker 1: pool by yourself. Like this. This one article put it
36:32
Speaker 1: like learning to swim doesn't drown proof your kid. Something
36:37
Speaker 1: like a quarter of deaths by drowning are from kids
36:41
Speaker 1: who knew how to swim or people who knew how
36:42
Speaker 1: to swim. So, um, it's good to know how to swim,
36:47
Speaker 1: and it probably will help at some point, like anytime
36:50
Speaker 1: you get into a pool, but it doesn't drown proof you.
36:54
Speaker 1: And you need to also be smart in other ways
36:56
Speaker 1: to Yeah. I mean we're literally right in the middle
36:58
Speaker 1: of swim lessons for our daughter and um at, you know,
37:02
Speaker 1: approaching three years old, and it's tough man. She's she
37:08
Speaker 1: doesn't like getting her face in the water, So there's
37:10
Speaker 1: a that's just smart. Well, yeah, that's a good instinct probably,
37:14
Speaker 1: but not when you're trying to teach your kid how
37:16
Speaker 1: to swim. That's problematic. So it's a slow process in
37:20
Speaker 1: our case. Other kids, um take to it like a
37:24
Speaker 1: duck in the water as they say, Yeah, I I did.
37:27
Speaker 1: I would still remember taking swim lessons, and I was
37:30
Speaker 1: a pretty little kid myself, but I remember, I remember.
37:36
Speaker 1: The one thing I hated about swim lessons is that
37:38
Speaker 1: that came I had to leave in the middle of
37:41
Speaker 1: thunder the Barbarian on Saturday morning cartoons, so I never
37:45
Speaker 1: really got to watch a single full episode of Thunder.
37:48
Speaker 1: And then the other thing I remember is realizing that
37:51
Speaker 1: as I was swimming towards the swim instructor, I wasn't
37:55
Speaker 1: getting any closer. And it finally dawned on me. I
37:58
Speaker 1: was like, you're moving for her away that old trick,
38:02
Speaker 1: and she was like, no, I'm not. And suddenly I
38:04
Speaker 1: was like there you know. Um. But I remember being like, oh,
38:08
Speaker 1: there's such a thing as guile in deception. I had
38:11
Speaker 1: no idea. Now I learned it thanks to my swim instructor. Yeah.
38:14
Speaker 1: My deal was I was terrified of swimming and swim
38:21
Speaker 1: class drowning. Oh where are you? Okay? Um? Yeah, I
38:27
Speaker 1: just my brother and sister went to swim class. They
38:29
Speaker 1: learned how to swim. I refused. I was really scared.
38:33
Speaker 1: I would not go out of the shallow in for
38:34
Speaker 1: many years. I know, I was a little scaredy cat.
38:39
Speaker 1: But I my mom. I remember very distinctly when I
38:43
Speaker 1: was I guess I was like, I was kind of
38:45
Speaker 1: old man. I was like six years old, and she
38:50
Speaker 1: she didn't threaten me, but she said, hey, listen, you're
38:53
Speaker 1: gonna take swim lessons. Uh, in like July, it's you've
38:57
Speaker 1: got to learn how to swim. July is go time,
38:59
Speaker 1: and this was uh and I'm making updates, but let's
39:02
Speaker 1: say it was July. And then in June we went
39:05
Speaker 1: to visit my grandparents, whose neighbor head of pool, and
39:08
Speaker 1: we were doing that thing where you hold on to
39:11
Speaker 1: the edge of the pool to get a bunch of
39:13
Speaker 1: kids and go around and around and create like a
39:14
Speaker 1: little whirlpool. And I remember very distinctly taking my hands
39:19
Speaker 1: off earlier and earlier and taught myself to swim that day.
39:24
Speaker 1: Oh cool. And it was because it was kind of
39:27
Speaker 1: a current and people in front of me and behind me,
39:30
Speaker 1: and I just started letting go a little sooner and
39:31
Speaker 1: a little sooner in the deep end, and before you
39:34
Speaker 1: know what, I was doing a very rudimentary dog paddle
39:38
Speaker 1: and that led to very poor swimming, which I still
39:42
Speaker 1: still have today. Were you swimming around and you're like
39:45
Speaker 1: self taught? Yeah, at his at his T shirt that
39:48
Speaker 1: had self taught back off. I'm still not a good swimmer.
39:52
Speaker 1: I mean, I can swim fine, but I'm not as
39:54
Speaker 1: far as swimming strokes and proper swimming, I'm terrible. I
40:00
Speaker 1: can do a swimming stroke, it's not any good, but
40:03
Speaker 1: I can do the technique of it. But I was
40:07
Speaker 1: on a swim team. See, I never was. It was
40:09
Speaker 1: the worst swim team in the league, and I was
40:11
Speaker 1: the worst member of the team. Yes, so, um, we're
40:16
Speaker 1: in the county. That was your nickname. My worst was
40:18
Speaker 1: pretty much. My worst was the backstroke, and um, the
40:23
Speaker 1: coaches would always put me in a back stroke could
40:25
Speaker 1: be like, please, don't, like, why are you doing this?
40:27
Speaker 1: And now, as a grown up, I know because they
40:29
Speaker 1: were just like, we're losing anyway, We're gonna watch Josh
40:31
Speaker 1: do the backstroke. Every time I did the backstroke, I
40:35
Speaker 1: would end up like two lanes over. Yeah, and when
40:41
Speaker 1: I bumped to the other kid, they would inevitably stand
40:44
Speaker 1: up and so we both be disqualified because I couldn't
40:46
Speaker 1: stay in my own lane. And then the coaches just
40:49
Speaker 1: thought that was hilarious. Yeah, I was never on a
40:54
Speaker 1: swim team, and that's where you learned how to do
40:56
Speaker 1: it properly, you know. I mean I can I can
40:58
Speaker 1: ape those strokes from why ching the Olympics, but um,
41:02
Speaker 1: it's it's nothing close to I mean, I can't do
41:04
Speaker 1: butterfly obviously, because I'll teach you this summer. Okay, Butterfly
41:08
Speaker 1: is definitely the hardest man. But the breaststroke, it's nice.
41:12
Speaker 1: It's a good it's a good stroke. I'm gonna I'm
41:14
Speaker 1: I'm teaching you to swim this summer some some strokes. Okay, Yeah,
41:18
Speaker 1: I mean I can do a rudimentary breaststroke, but it
41:20
Speaker 1: looks more like I'm just kind of bobbing up and down.
41:22
Speaker 1: I'm not really not going very far. Yeah. But once you,
41:25
Speaker 1: once you, if you do it, you're like, oh, this
41:29
Speaker 1: is what it's supposed to feel like. I know what
41:30
Speaker 1: you're talking about. I've had that sensation before too. But
41:33
Speaker 1: you're just like a like a frog that ain't quite right,
41:36
Speaker 1: you know. All right, So here's some other handy rules. Um,
41:42
Speaker 1: if you have a newborn or a toddler or anybody
41:45
Speaker 1: anyone basically up to about four um, they say to uh,
41:50
Speaker 1: they call it touch supervision. So like, never be more
41:53
Speaker 1: than an arm link away because it can happen very
41:57
Speaker 1: fast in a swimming pool and a bathtub. Hub, get
42:01
Speaker 1: off your cell phone, put down your Marie Claire in
42:05
Speaker 1: your Red Book, and your Readers Digest or your Men's
42:08
Speaker 1: Health Sure or your Bodybuilders Weekly or your Mad magazine,
42:16
Speaker 1: pay attention to your kid. Uh. If you have a pool,
42:19
Speaker 1: you need to have that thing fenced in. Oh yeah,
42:22
Speaker 1: or even better these days they have those excellent. Um
42:27
Speaker 1: it's not a hard top, but it's between hard and
42:30
Speaker 1: the little soft top that that are retractable. So you
42:33
Speaker 1: get out and you go inside and you can you
42:35
Speaker 1: can cover that pool right up. Yeah, although I think
42:38
Speaker 1: by law you have to have a fence around, like
42:41
Speaker 1: four sided fence um with like a self closing gate
42:45
Speaker 1: that also self latches too. Yeah, and you have to
42:49
Speaker 1: grease it with crisco so little kids can't climb. Well,
42:52
Speaker 1: you do that anyway, right, but it is it's fun
42:54
Speaker 1: to watch him try. You should learn CPR. You should
42:58
Speaker 1: have all the little life saving implements at your pool.
43:03
Speaker 1: Oh another one I had not thought about this, but
43:05
Speaker 1: if you have a pool, you want to have a
43:07
Speaker 1: landline too, because you need to keep a phone that
43:10
Speaker 1: works right by your pool at all times. Yes, so
43:14
Speaker 1: you need to be like Thurston Howell and have a
43:17
Speaker 1: pool that made out of a clamshell that a guy
43:20
Speaker 1: in a white tuxedo can bring over and sit down
43:23
Speaker 1: on a side table, or like Hunter Thompson at the
43:28
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Hotel. I need bring up Hunter Thompson at
43:31
Speaker 1: some point in this. One other thing I want to
43:34
Speaker 1: say to also, if your kid has like an episode
43:37
Speaker 1: that looks like a close call to you but they
43:41
Speaker 1: seem fine, then yes, keep an eye on them for
43:45
Speaker 1: that the idea that they could conceivably have drowned and
43:48
Speaker 1: they could be developing symptoms. And if they start to
43:51
Speaker 1: develop any symptoms and take them to the e R
43:54
Speaker 1: and the e R doctors will very kindly listen to
43:56
Speaker 1: their lungs to see if they hear any water. Easy peace, right.
44:01
Speaker 1: At the same time, don't freak out, Like if your
44:04
Speaker 1: kid just coughs and sputters a little bit and they're
44:07
Speaker 1: fine and they don't develop any symptoms at all, they're
44:11
Speaker 1: fine most likely, right, But it does pay to be
44:14
Speaker 1: vigilant and its it's it is better safe than sorry.
44:17
Speaker 1: Just don't be terrified if you're your kid. You know,
44:21
Speaker 1: as long as they didn't have anything that you could
44:23
Speaker 1: be like that was kind of a drowning episode that
44:26
Speaker 1: just happened, Um, you're probably in the clear. Yeah, it's
44:30
Speaker 1: it's a rare case that kid in Texas. But because
44:34
Speaker 1: it does happen. Keep an eye out for sure. On
44:36
Speaker 1: the other hand, though the media like talking about this stuff,
44:39
Speaker 1: supposedly is saved at least one other kid's life. Um
44:44
Speaker 1: from the publicity that went around that case, that that
44:47
Speaker 1: it happened to another kid later on in the parents
44:49
Speaker 1: had heard about this and took their kid into the
44:51
Speaker 1: e er and saved saved your life. I believe. There
44:54
Speaker 1: you have it. Um. You also don't necessarily just drown
44:58
Speaker 1: in a pool either, No, I mean this stuff is horrifying.
45:02
Speaker 1: The thought of an infant drowning and a dog water
45:05
Speaker 1: bowl is a nightmare scenario. Yeah, drop um, dog water bowl,
45:12
Speaker 1: open cooler that has melted ice, um, toilets, a cleaning bucket,
45:18
Speaker 1: anything that can hold something like one inch of water
45:21
Speaker 1: is um is is enough to drown and an infant
45:26
Speaker 1: and possibly a toddler I think too. Um, Cars people
45:30
Speaker 1: drowning cars as well. Bathtubs are actually another one. So
45:35
Speaker 1: get this man. So usually, uh, people who drown in
45:39
Speaker 1: bathtubs are infants are the elderly. Um, but there's a
45:44
Speaker 1: lot of adults who drown in bathtubs and specifically hot tubs.
45:48
Speaker 1: Did you know about this well, I mean, yeah, you
45:52
Speaker 1: get a little drunk, you're stand up too fast, and
45:55
Speaker 1: you're dizzy from the temperature. It's not good. It's not
45:58
Speaker 1: a good combo. And that's supposedly what happened to Oorvial Reddenbocker.
46:02
Speaker 1: He was in a hot bath and suffered a heart
46:04
Speaker 1: attack and ended up drowning. Whinney Houston died in a bathtub.
46:08
Speaker 1: And I think every year in the US about three
46:11
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty people drowning their bathtub in a year.
46:16
Speaker 1: It seems like a normal amount, right, Yeah. I guess
46:20
Speaker 1: how many die in bathtubs in Japan in a year?
46:23
Speaker 1: How many? Fourteen thousand? Why? I don't know. I think
46:29
Speaker 1: they take more hot baths. They have the soccer tubs too, Yeah,
46:33
Speaker 1: as part of it's like part of the culture. That's
46:35
Speaker 1: the only thing I can think of. Because they also
46:38
Speaker 1: have like one third of the population of the US too,
46:42
Speaker 1: that's a lot of drowning deaths and bathtubs. Man. Man. Yeah, Well,
46:49
Speaker 1: they did say to like more people die in Florida
46:51
Speaker 1: in car drownings just because there are more waterfront roadways.
46:57
Speaker 1: And then earlier when we talked about the h racial
47:01
Speaker 1: aspect the whole deal, we kind of just kind of
47:03
Speaker 1: flew past it. But Native Alaskans and indigenous people's um
47:08
Speaker 1: died more than white people because they are more often
47:11
Speaker 1: in bodies of water that are probably far away and
47:15
Speaker 1: have logs and rocks and things underneath. Yeah, so they
47:20
Speaker 1: have more exposure to natural bodies of water than the
47:23
Speaker 1: average American. Yeah, you got anything else? Nope, Well that's drowning.
47:29
Speaker 1: Hopefully we helped in some way because summer's coming. Okay,
47:33
Speaker 1: that's right, and I'm going to teach you the breaststroke. Sweet.
47:37
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about drowning, you can
47:39
Speaker 1: type that sad said word into the search bar at
47:42
Speaker 1: how stuff works and it'll bring up something. And since
47:45
Speaker 1: I said that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna
47:49
Speaker 1: call this first thing I just pulled up on my
47:51
Speaker 1: phone right here. Look at that nice But it's about
47:56
Speaker 1: the Steve Miller band and peaches. Remember the emojis episode
48:00
Speaker 1: one of us? Probably you, I didn't say Steve Miller,
48:04
Speaker 1: I said, all men brothers. Oh well, he said, someone
48:09
Speaker 1: mentioned the line from Steve Miller Band, I really like
48:12
Speaker 1: your peaches. I want to shake your tree. Didn't want
48:14
Speaker 1: of us not mentioned that. Now this person is out
48:17
Speaker 1: of their mind. Well he has an email. Regardless, we
48:22
Speaker 1: all love the Steve Miller band. Uh. Now this story
48:25
Speaker 1: is probably not true, but I want you to believe it.
48:27
Speaker 1: Back in college, when my youngest daughter was born, I
48:29
Speaker 1: was driving a delivery truck for a small auto parts company.
48:32
Speaker 1: I worked with this old guy and he was probably
48:35
Speaker 1: like forty two. Uh and his stories. Uh. I worked
48:41
Speaker 1: with this old guy. He's probably like forty two. That's
48:45
Speaker 1: me talking. So one time he told me that he
48:47
Speaker 1: worked in this auto shop years ago and it was
48:49
Speaker 1: owned by this husband and wife. Uh. And he had
48:52
Speaker 1: played bass for a little while with Steve Miller band,
48:55
Speaker 1: and her name was Peaches, his wife. So the story
48:59
Speaker 1: was that a line from Steve Miller really like your
49:02
Speaker 1: Peaches want to shake your tree? Was Steve Miller taunting
49:05
Speaker 1: his own bass player. I mean, he says, I don't
49:08
Speaker 1: know if he's true, but the story is like, it
49:10
Speaker 1: rang true enough. So I like to think that somewhere
49:13
Speaker 1: there's a couple that owns an auto parts part store
49:16
Speaker 1: in Arizona and uh to stick it to Steve Miller,
49:21
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to stick it to Steve Miller, you know.
49:24
Speaker 1: And that's from Jared Dude. I was in a the
49:28
Speaker 1: local market near my house about a year ago and
49:32
Speaker 1: some artisan tonic I know, uh, and my buddy Chris Cox,
49:37
Speaker 1: you know who plays bass in my band, we were
49:39
Speaker 1: he happened to be in there. We were kind of
49:40
Speaker 1: talking about music. His wife's name is Peaches too. No,
49:44
Speaker 1: it's not um. We're talking about music, and this guy
49:48
Speaker 1: who looked like h like an old Southern rocker, came
49:51
Speaker 1: up and he was like, you guys in a band? Yeah?
49:54
Speaker 1: And he was like me too, It's like, oh yeah,
49:57
Speaker 1: and I'm the flute player in the Marshall Tucker band. No,
50:01
Speaker 1: And I was like whoa. Like, if Marshall Tucker band
50:05
Speaker 1: is known for one thing, it's the flute. Like, for real,
50:08
Speaker 1: what's the what's name off a couple of their FLUTEI songs? Well,
50:13
Speaker 1: heard it in a love song. Can't be wrong that
50:16
Speaker 1: one has that famous flute part. No, no, you know
50:20
Speaker 1: that song, sure, but I can't think of the flute part.
50:23
Speaker 1: I mean it's the whole intro. Dude, do do do
50:27
Speaker 1: do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do do
50:29
Speaker 1: do do do do do that's all flute. Oh, I
50:34
Speaker 1: guess I've never realized that. Anyway, A bunch of their
50:37
Speaker 1: songs have the flute, and he is, granted, he was
50:39
Speaker 1: not the original flutist. He's one of these, you know,
50:42
Speaker 1: Marshall Tucker Bands, one of those deals where it's like
50:45
Speaker 1: two original members. They've had twenty twenty flute players, like
50:48
Speaker 1: the Temptations or something. Yeah, but I was still impressive. Man,
50:52
Speaker 1: That's that's amazing. It is impressive. And then like anchor man,
50:56
Speaker 1: he whipped one out of his sleeve right there in
50:57
Speaker 1: the store, kicked some candles off the tables in winter time. Yeah,
51:03
Speaker 1: I'd say Marshall Tucker Band is second only to Jethro
51:06
Speaker 1: Toll for flute innovation. Okay, that's who I'm thinking of.
51:11
Speaker 1: They did like aqua long Hey, hey, how about that.
51:15
Speaker 1: We just came full circle. All right, let's just end it.
51:17
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with Chuck and
51:19
Speaker 1: Me and Jerry, you can send us an email to
51:22
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has
51:24
Speaker 1: always joined us at home on the web. Stuff you
51:26
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
51:31
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio,
51:35
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever
51:38
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,