Almost a bad situation!

[freediver]

When I went through ocean lifeguard training in Daytona Beach, we were specifically trained NOT to rescue someone if we didn't have our tubes with us because of the danger involved being within reaching distance of a panicked diver without a flotation device.

hey whitedragon13, when you were trained to NOT rescue someone when you had no rescue tube, can etc.. I am assuming the only time this would be was when you were off duty? Otherwise when would you be guarding without ? Curious.

 

[randyjoy]

The Clueless Samaritan state. Texas is an anomoly; it protects only those who are "not licensed in the healing arts", suggesting that someone with no CPR is safe but anyone with a 'license' has no immunity from suit. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code sec. 74.0002. Does this include that coveted ARC or AHA CPR "license?" Your guess is as good as mine or a jury of your peers in Beumont Texas. Note that "PADI" and YMCA are not included in the protected class of trainers. Time to beef up that lobbying budget!

Only a physician is licensed in the healing arts.

 

[whitedragon13]

hey whitedragon13, when you were trained to NOT rescue someone when you had no rescue tube, can etc.. I am assuming the only time this would be was when you were off duty? Otherwise when would you be guarding without ? Curious.

That's one (like lunchtime), or other various "weird" situations. For example, if I went to assist someone behind my tower, at a hotel or whatever, I usually gave my tube to a bystander and have them go out to the road to flag down my back up.

I can say for a fact, that a drowning person can, and DOES call (scream) for help. I only had one full drowning, and he weakly called for help until he lost consciousness.

I can also say that rescue breathing in water is VERY difficult if there are waves. The only time I did it for real was in small-craft warning conditions and we performed psuedo CPR for 45 minutes in the waves. I retched for 30 minutes afterwards. Crazy thing is, though, the paramedics revived the guy enroute to the hospital-he didn't make it through the night, but that convinced me CPR works. If the most messed-up CPR technique in huge waves for 45 minutes can sustain life, imagine good technique on land.

As for helping people and putting yourself into danger-well, I think that's just part of your make-up. I seem to find people in trouble and instinctively dive in. I've been initial on-scene to several car accidents, went to rescue someone years after being a lifeguard, and most recently climbed the outside of a building to put out a fire on a second floor balcony.

I don't relate these stories to brag; only to show that when the time comes, you'll either go, or you won't. And if you do, when it's over the adrenaline will make you feel like laughing and sobbing all at the same time and later you'll call yourself an idiot for taking that risk...but hopefully, you were good/lucky and someone lived.

There's nothing better than the feeling when someone hugs you after you save their life. There's nothing worse than feeling someone's life slip away in your arms.

 

[whitedragon13]

hey whitedragon13, when you were trained to NOT rescue someone when you had no rescue tube, can etc.. I am assuming the only time this would be was when you were off duty? Otherwise when would you be guarding without ? Curious.

The two specific times I did it was when people were separated. On one, a boyfriend/girlfriend were drowning. I got to her first and she was so-so; her boyfriend was borderline. I gave her the can and told her to hang on, someone would be behind me to bring her in, I got to him-he panicked and lunged for me. I yelled at him to take a deep breath and lie back, came up behind him, and blah-blah-blah. The other case was similar.

In both cases, the danger was very real to me. I credit advanced rescue (NAUI DART at the time) for giving me the little extra confidence to make the attempt.

 

[freediver]

That's one (like lunchtime), or other various "weird" situations. For example, if I went to assist someone behind my tower, at a hotel or whatever, I usually gave my tube to a bystander and have them go out to the road to flag down my back up.

I can say for a fact, that a drowning person can, and DOES call (scream) for help. I only had one full drowning, and he weakly called for help until he lost consciousness.

By drowning person, actively drowning that is, I refer to a non swimmer in water over their head and by definition is one who is generally struggling too hard to call for help. If you rescued one who was calling for help, they were distressed and it escalated into a drowning event and due to their prior control in the water had some manner of ability to call for help.
If you are saying that a non swimmer has the ability to call for help when they are focused on maintaining an airway then that disputes well over 50 years of research devoted to the topic. I have actually been indirectly involved in the research into victim recogniton and rescue for almost 20 years. In fact, one of the ways that led to these findings was the method of discovery, video cameras set up above and u/w that showed victim characteristics in different episodes, distressed swimmers, active and passive drownings.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Interesting... lots of hypotheticals and legals and all sorts of situationals.
My rule is simple.
Somebody's in trouble? If I can help 'em I'm going to do so. I will take some considerable risk, but not what I consider life-threatening - it is true that I do not want to have two corpses. Over the years I've hauled folks out of the water, out of car wrecks, given rescue breathing (in California! without an AIDs shield!), used my little hand-held fire extinguisher... I have never considered what the local tort law may be in making my decision and never plan to. I will never let a stupid law keep me from doing the right thing when someone's life is on the line.
---
In the specific case that started this thread, I would have done it a bit differently, (I am not faulting what you did - you were there and I was not; you had a good outcome and that is the ultimate arbiter of the rightness of what you did) but only because this one falls into a pre-planned response situation, so I've decided what to do before the event ever happened. I would not have geared up, but would have grabbed my BC and inflated it (if attached to a tank, leave it attached and use the power inflator, if not, orally inflate it - if it's weight integrated dump the weights). If the person was close enough to throw the BC to him, throw it; otherwise swim it out in front of me, keeping it between me and the victim. Give directions in a loud firm commanding but calm voice. Haul him in once he has hold of the BC (if thrown, go on out and get it and him). If he tries to come over the BC swim away until he settles down.
In the meantime my buddy would be suiting up in case the rescue has to become an underwater recovery.
Rick

 

[whitedragon13]

By drowning person, actively drowning that is, I refer to a non swimmer in water over their head and by definition is one who is generally struggling too hard to call for help. If you rescued one who was calling for help, they were distressed and it escalated into a drowning event and due to their prior control in the water had some manner of ability to call for help.
If you are saying that a non swimmer has the ability to call for help when they are focused on maintaining an airway then that disputes well over 50 years of research devoted to the topic. I have actually been indirectly involved in the research into victim recogniton and rescue for almost 20 years. In fact, one of the ways that led to these findings was the method of discovery, video cameras set up above and u/w that showed victim characteristics in different episodes, distressed swimmers, active and passive drownings.

I guess I am disuputing over 50 years of research, then. I won't say that every drowning person calls for help, but many do. I'm not sure about your camera example-I don't see how you could do an u/w camera at the beach. What I do base my statement on is 5 years as a pool lifeguard and 3 years as a Volusia County (Daytona Beach) Lifeguard. I've only pulled 3 kids out of a pool in all that time, but pulled well over 100 people out of the ocean. If you go to USLA you can look up statistics....I worked in Daytona from summer 1995-winter of 1998. You'll notice no data is available for 1997, because so many rescues were done, the county didn't want to report numbers for fear people would stop visiting. If I remember correctly, we had pulled out over 3,000 people by June of 97.

The worst one I heard about (wasn't involved) was a man and his very young niece being caught in a bad rip. They couldn't touch and were drowning-the man took his niece and held her over his head. The lifeguard saw the girl "floating weird" and went to get her-the uncle was dead; sacrificied himself for his niece. Somehow, he fought his natural instincts in a drowning situation and kept his cool even as he died.

 

[freediver]

I guess I am disuputing over 50 years of research, then. I won't say that every drowning person calls for help, but many do.

We may be arguing two different points here but by drowning victim are you referring to a non swimmer? If referring to a distressed that has escalated into a drowning victim then i agree, they may manage to call for help BEFORE the instinctive drowning response occurs. If a non swimming drowning person, labeled as an active drowning, they cannot call for help. I cite two references here: "Although some people believe active drowning victims can call out for help, this is not true. They can barely take in enough air to breathe, so there is no air left over to call out for help" (American Red Cross Lifeguard Training manual, Patron Surveillance, pg. 23) and "Unlike distressed swimmers, they (active drownings) are unable to call for help. They are expending all of their energy trying to keep their heads above water and breathe." (YMCA On The Guard ll, Victim Recognition and Drowning, pg. 59)
Sorry if i come across as belaboring the point but i too have spent my share of time in the water effecting rescues and have seen totally opposite of what you are telling me.
Nevertheless, I think we both agree that any in-water rescue is a real danger for the rescuer, regardless of training as I have seen the well intentioned rescue/rescuer end in tragedy.

 

[whitedragon13]

We may be arguing two different points here but by drowning victim are you referring to a non swimmer? If referring to a distressed that has escalated into a drowning victim then i agree, they may manage to call for help BEFORE the instinctive drowning response occurs.

I don't think it matters if it is a "non swimmer" or a "swimmer." At the final stages of the game, it doesn't matter how experienced you are, you'll start the "climbing the ladder" instinct.

I think where we're arguing different points is "drowning." In my opinion, the person you are referring to actually has "drowned" whether it be full, near, dry, or on the way to secondary. In that case, you may be right (although my full drowning victim called for help whenever his head was above water.) What I consider "drowning" is someone on the way to the above conditions.

I myself nearly drowned a few years back, when I got too big for my britches and surfed the North Shore after only 1 month of experience. A huge wave broke my leash and I got pounded by multiple sets of big water. I didn't call for help because I recovered from panic in time, but there was about 5 minutes of sheer terror. For some reason, I thought to myself, "Headline: Daytona Beach lifeguard drowns in Hale'iwa" and how embarrasing that would be. It actually made me laugh, calm down, and swim back in to the shore. 10 minutes later, I saw a kid break his boogie board and I went in after him (lifeguard beat me to him). Like I said, I think people will either go, or they won't, instinctively.

Anyway, I guess we're arguing semantics, but we do agree rescues definitely put your own life in danger.

 

[freediver]

I don't think it matters if it is a "non swimmer" or a "swimmer." At the final stages of the game, it doesn't matter how experienced you are, you'll start the "climbing the ladder" instinct.

I think where we're arguing different points is "drowning." In my opinion, the person you are referring to actually has "drowned" whether it be full, near, dry, or on the way to secondary. In that case, you may be right (although my full drowning victim called for help whenever his head was above water.) What I consider "drowning" is someone on the way to the above conditions.

I myself nearly drowned a few years back, when I got too big for my britches and surfed the North Shore after only 1 month of experience. A huge wave broke my leash and I got pounded by multiple sets of big water. I didn't call for help because I recovered from panic in time, but there was about 5 minutes of sheer terror. For some reason, I thought to myself, "Headline: Daytona Beach lifeguard drowns in Hale'iwa" and how embarrasing that would be. It actually made me laugh, calm down, and swim back in to the shore. 10 minutes later, I saw a kid break his boogie board and I went in after him (lifeguard beat me to him). Like I said, I think people will either go, or they won't, instinctively.

Anyway, I guess we're arguing semantics, but we do agree rescues definitely put your own life in danger.

heehee, if you were going to drown, North Shore would have been a beautiful place for it. Glad everything was fine. I agree, i think semantics would not be worth arguing over.