Water Safety: The Basics (1979)

[Music] [Music] swimming, boating and fishing are three of our most popular outdoor recreational activities. If these three leisure pursuits were combined into the single category of water sports, it would by far outrank all other outdoor hobbies in America for popularity. These are lifetime sports. No one, it seems, is too old or too young to enjoy the water. But where there's water, there's also danger. Over 7,000 Americans drown every year. For people between the ages of 4 and 44, drowning is surpassed only by traffic accidents as the largest single cause of death. Many of these tragic drownings could be averted with just a little training and a little caution. To ensure your own safety around water, the most important precaution is also the most obvious. Learn to swim. Most drowning victims are people who don't know how to swim. You can learn the basics in just a few lessons in courses offered by local schools with pools and by organizations such as the American Red Cross, the YMCA, YW.CA, Girl Scouts, or Boy Scouts. Almost as important is picking out a safe place to swim. A well-maintained pool or beach that's closely supervised by trained lifeguards is best. For your own protection, you should immediately obey the instructions of the lifeguards and observe all the local rules and regulations. If you swim or wait in an unsupervised area, your risks increase. Here are some things to check out before you go in. Make sure the water is unpolluted. Clear water adds to the safety since murky water might hide broken glass, jagged tin cans, or other hazards. The bottom should slope gradually into deep water and be free of sudden drop offs, holes, or obstructions. Okay, let's see if we can in an unfamiliar place. Never dive or jump in until you've carefully checked the depth of the water and made sure that there are no logs, rocks, or other dangerous debris on the bottom. Avoid swimming in any places with strong currents or treacherous undertoes. If you should ever be caught in a current, don't fight it by trying to swim directly against the direction of flow. Move with the water and at a diagonal to the current, angling toward shore. In any circumstance, avoid swimming by yourself. Use the buddy system. Even if there's a whole gang of you swimming together, pair off so you can keep an eye on each other's safety in the water. Inflatable rafts and balls can be fun, but it's a mistake to trust them to hold you up. They're toys, not life preservers. So, play with them in the shallows where they belong. If there are little ones in the water, you can help them stay safe by keeping an eye on their water toys. If a ball floats out of the shallow water, a youngster may try to retrieve it and get into deep trouble. Most of the practices of good water safety are just common sense. For example, it's important to know your own limitations. If you overestimate your ability or if you're tired or cold, you might not be able to make it out to that raft way out there in deep water. So, don't even try it unless you're sure. No, it's too dangerous. I can't swim that far. I don't think I can make it. If you're swimming in water over your head and one of your muscles suddenly tightens and locks into place, it can be a terrifying experience. In dealing with cramps, the most important rule is don't panic. Keep your head. Cramps will often go away if you'll just relax your muscles and change to a different type of swimming stroke. If the charlie horse or cramp doesn't go away, stay calm. Take a deep breath and allow yourself to sink just below the surface of the water. Now, grab the cramped muscle with both hands and massage and knead it hard with your thumbs and fingers. Try to stretch the knotted muscles. This will usually bring relief. If the cramp is in your foot or toe, squeeze and massage the arch of your foot. When the cramp is broken, go directly to shore and continue massaging the muscle. Even if you can't ease the cramp, remain calm. Remember, you can swim with a cramp in your arm or leg if you don't panic. So far, we've been talking about safe swimming procedures, but the tragic fact is two out of three people who drown don't plan to go in the water in the first place. [Music] They may fall from the shore, a pier or dock, a bridge, or a boat. Too often, a boater drowns because he or she didn't use common sense and observe a few simple rules. Here's a composite view of a floating disaster. How many things can you find wrong in this picture? Obviously, this is no place to operate a boat. Boats should always be kept well away from marked swimming areas and obstructions for the safety of both the innocent swimmers and the boers. Too many passengers. Overloading a boat is an invitation to capsizing. They shouldn't be standing up. There's no excuse for standing in a small moving boat, even to change [Music] seats. If it's necessary to change places in a boat, head for shallow water first, then switch one at a time. Keep your body low to avoid falling overboard. Sitting on the gunnels is asking for trouble. You can easily fall overboard or capsize the entire boat. Use the seats in a rowboat or motorboat and kneel or sit in the bottom of a canoe. This pair is flirting with drowning. Anyone who gets rowdy in a motorboat is asking for a disastrous massage from the whirling steel blades of the propeller. There are no life jackets on any of the passengers or even the water skier and no life preservers in the boat. The law requires at least one approved personal flotation device or PFD for each passenger on any boat. There are several types of PFDs. Types 1, 2, and three are designed to be worn as vests. Type four is a life preserver designed to be thrown to someone in the water. It may double as a boat cushion or it may be the ring style. This is not an approved PFD, nor [Music] this, nor [Music] this. An acceptable personal flotation device must be approved by the US Coast Guard. Look for this statement on any PFD. If it doesn't say Coast Guard approved, it won't satisfy the law, and it may not save your life when you're depending upon it. Big boats 16 ft in length or longer must have one approved vest style PFD for each passenger, plus one approved throwable style PFD on each boat. Law requires that smaller boats carry one personal flotation device of either type for each passenger. The PFDs must be within easy reach of the passengers, not stored away somewhere that would make it difficult to get to them in case of emergencies. But why not play it extra safe? Wear a PFD whenever you into a boat and make certain that children, elderly people, nonswmers, and the physically or mentally handicapped wear PFDs whenever they're even near water. If you're ever in a boat or raft that swamps or capsizes, stay with the boat rather than trying to swim for a long distance to shore. Nearly all boats will continue to float, even if they're completely full of water. Your safest bet is to hang on and wait for help. Or if the boat is right side up, climb back in and attempt to paddle it to [Music] shore. Use your hands as paddles if necessary. Watch this demonstration very carefully. Because this technique can save your life even if you don't know how to swim. First, stay calm. Slip out of your shoes. Avoid thrashing. This will only exhaust you. Now, take a breath. Then, slump forward in the water, allowing your face to drop just below the surface. Let your arms and legs dangle loosely. Stay calm. You won't sink to the bottom, but will float just under the surface with the back of your head breaking the surface. When you want to take a breath, slowly raise your arms and separate your legs. Now bring your arms down and pull your legs together. Let out your breath as you rise to the surface. Keep your eyes open and take a breath. Return to the resting position by slumping forward again. Repeat this cycle whenever you want air. Don't wait until you're completely out of breath. At first, you may want to come up for air every 3 or 4 seconds, but if you're in the water for very long, you'll find that you can eventually relax and come up for air only five or six times a minute. Stay limp. Conserve your energy by keeping your movements slow and deliberate. Don't try to stand vertically in the water or attempt to lift your head completely out of the water. Using this technique, even a person who can't swim a stroke can survive for many hours in deep water. The next time you go to a pool or the beach, practice this system in chest deep water. After a few minutes, you'll be convinced that you won't sink and you'll gain confidence that you can survive. So far, we've been showing ways for you to protect yourself from drowning. However, someday someone else may be in peril in the water and need your help. But never jump in the water and swim up to a frantic, struggling swimmer. There's a very good chance that both of you will drown. But even a complete nonswmer can often save a life without endangering his or her own safety. The first step is to talk. This person must deal with the victim's panic. The rescuer must calm him so he can follow directions. You can give physical aid by throwing or pushing something that will float to the person who is in trouble. A PFD is best, but if none is handy, use whatever you can find. A beach ball, an ice chest, a piece of wood, a chunk of styrofoam, or even a spare tire may hold up a drowning person until you can help him or her to shore. Or hold out something the person can grasp. Use a paddle. A branch, a piece of rope, hurry. Hold on. A towel or even your shirt to extend your reach. If the victim is close to a pier or dock, and you don't have any other means of rescue, lie flat, anchor yourself as shown, and hold out the other hand to the person in the water. If you try to stand up to pull them to safety, you may be pulled in the water. If there is no other choice, you may have to get in the water to help. Take a firm solid hold on the pier and extend your leg for the person to grasp. Don't release your grip on the pier for any reason. A group of rescuers can extend their reach by forming a human chain. Use an interlocking grip like this to make certain the chain isn't broken. If you must go in by yourself to try to rescue someone, push some object in front of you for the victim to grasp. Stay calm. Speak calmly to the person as you approach. Don't let him get his hands on you. Keep the object between the two of you. If the victim panics and tries to climb over the object to reach you, let loose and move away. Don't risk your own safety. We're almost there. Continue to talk to the victim until he or she is calm enough to accept your rescue efforts without endangering you. If you'll just remember and practice the water safety hints shown in this film for avoiding dangerous situations, for surviving in deep water, and for rescuing others without placing yourself in a perilous situation. You'll be able to look forward to participating in America's favorite outdoor activities with a great deal of pleasure, confidence, and safety. [Music]