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How Drowning Works · Stuff You Should Know

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