Have any of you seen or experienced serious pool accidents, such as saves, drowning, collisions with serious consequences...? I haven't seen myself, but I've heard of some scaring collisions due to too crowded lanes. In one case, a swimmer's toe was broken; in another, a swimmer's eyeball was taken out :eek: while backstroking and another swimmer freestyling and didn't see the first swimmer (who didn't wear goggles). In another case, a swimmer drowned (cause unknown) and her body stayed at the bottom of the pool for a long time before being discovered--someone swam above and past her three times and saw her still there. It's said the lifeguards were changing shifts during that time and didn't pay attention.
Former Member
Oh. When I saw the title of this thread I thought you meant accidents such as "fecal accidents". :bolt:
I have heard of accidents. Water turns red when certain accident happens.
I had a pool accident in my pool. A kid ate too much spinach he thought he was passing air, he did not he passed spinach.
I read about a US Navy Seal who drowned in full view of lifeguards in Hawaii . What happened was he approached the guards and I guess showed his ID and told them he was a S.E.A.L and was training to hold his breath. He told them not to worry about him and they did not. He went down on the bottom in the shallow end and put a weight on him to hold him down held his breath till he passed out and stayed down as the guards thought he knew what he was doing even as people told them..theres a guy down on the bottom..Yea.. hes a Navy S.E.A.L training they said and did not realize he had never surfaced. Sad. In a pool in the area here a boy died about 20 years ago in the deep end as the water was a bit murky needing the filter cleaned or something and the guards did not see him on the bottom untill it was too late.
There was a drowning in one of those leisure center "wave" pools here, either last year or the year before. I think they had the wave mechanism running, so bodies were being thrown around and it took a while to realize one was at the bottom. Haven't heard of any drownings in a regular pool, but I suppose they could happen during "public" or "family sessions when it's mass chaos with lots of shrieking kiddies about.
In my lifeguard days in the late 1970s the only person I ever "saved" was my younger brother, who attempted an inward dive off the high board and smacked his head on the board as he went by. I was practically airborne before he hit the water. He surfaced dazed but okay. Luckily I never saw or had to handle anything worse.
The only pool "accident" that I was involved in involved myself. I was in Florida at a Disney resort, and they had this waterfall thing. I walked underneath it and opened my eyes. These were the days before I had LASIK surgery, so I was wearing my contacts. The waterfall hit me in the eye and ripped my contact in half. One half flew out of my eye, but the other was pushed up into my eye socket behind my eye. I immediately pulled my eyelid open and shoved my index finger and thumb up there, grabbed something, and pulled it out. Luckily, I got it on the first try. If I hadn't gotten it that time, I probably would have freaked out and needed to go to the hospital. I'm lucky the adrenaline gave me at least that one shot. I'm glad I don't need to wear them anymore.
Somewhere I read in the fine print of meet registration that the most common place for injuries to occur at swim meets is during warmup. So I am always especially careful in those crowded warmup lanes.
I have seen two swimmers collide at a meet when one did a flip turn and, alas, ended in the adjacent lane and hit the head of the oncoming swimmer. And my coach had her hand broken in a practice when a swimmer from an adjacent lane whacked her hand into my coach's hand. Narrow lanes and fly and backstroke are particular perils.
But I don't worry about it. If I'm doing hypoxic breathing and I need air, I take a breath. It isn't worth passing out over. And if a swimmer in my lane disappears, I look for him/her on the bottom right away! Usually they've gotten out to go to the bathroom.
US Navy Seals have to pass a 50 yard underwater swim before graduating so thats why the breathing hold practise . There was also a recent drowning along the same lines this year with a young man training to enter the unit in a civilian pool.
Happened to someone last year at the Y-pool training for Navy Seals here on Long Island. I would be nervous doing that type of training without the buddy system.
I was a lifeguard for about 5 summers. During that time I think I counted 11 saves that I did. One was on a class mate. Another hitting the board with his head incident. He was fine. The rest were kids under 5. Most were because they were using those arm swimmy things and then they were taken off. The kids thought they could stil swim so they jumped in. Wrong! Then I had to jump in to get them out.
In college I could swim over 75 yd underwater(75,a push off and maybe a stroke.) When I went over to someone's house who had a back yard pool I'd ask "what is the OLD record for lengths underwater."I now realize how stupid that is.You only have to miscalculate once to be in big trouble,and if you've hyperventilated first you may not know you have to breathe until too late.
