RIP Currents what you need to know to escape them

What You Need To  Know About Surviving Rip Currents.

Many hundreds (if not thousands) of people drown after being sucked out to sea in rips each year, what do you need to know in order to escape this menace?

Rip currents kill more beachgoers each year than any other threat. Time to learn how to fight them.    Photo:Todd Quackenbush/Unsplash

Conventional wisdom says that Rips flow seaward, out to deep water, so beach access signs across the world advise swimmers to paddle parallel to the beach in order to escape the them. The strong, sometimes unpredictable (flash rips) kill more beach goers each year than any other threat.

 

Rips can form on any beach, sometimes suddenly, there one minute, gone the next (flash rips), swimmers usually don’t know a rip’s present until they’re in its clutches and on the way out to sea (out the back).  The photo opposite shows yours truly with a team of Scarborough Lifeguards (including one of our all girl IRB crews Tenae & Sam) performing a mass rescue due to a flash rip. Photo courtesy of the SLSWA Lifesaver One helicopter.


Unfortunately rips can, to the untrained eye, appear to be the best place to swim. As the photo opposite shows, the waves are not breaking in the rip (as the water is deeper), the water looks flatter / calmer in the rip than the remainder of the beach around it.  Panicked victims caught by the rip often try to swim directly back to shore—against the powerful offshore flow. Swimmers familiar with rips might try swimming parallel (left of right along the shore line) to escape. in some cases however simply giving in and going with the flow is the best option. Relax, float and raise / wave one arm to attract the attention of Lifeguards as the girls in the photo below did.

A number of rips flow in large circles, from the shallows, out through the breakers and part way back again. A swimmer stuck in a circulating rip has no way of knowing which way the current is flowing. That means that by swimming parallel to the shore—something signs at nearly every popular beach in the country advise—the swimmer has a 50/50 chance of paddling against the deadly current. In this case, and I am talking circular rips, or, if you are in any doubt, simply float on your back, relax and raise an arm to attract the attention of the Lifeguards as the girls opposite did last summer off Scarborough Beach.

The U.S. Lifeguard Association estimates that in the USA nearly 100 people die in rip currents each year, and that lifeguards saved over 48,000 Americans from rips in 2015 alone. The typical victim struggles against the unrelenting pull, panics, and eventually succumbs to exhaustion. Rips can form on any beach with waves, in nearly any conditions. They occur when the water is pushed up onto the beach, by the surf or wind, flows back out to sea in narrow, concentrated channels and they can be anywhere from ten to 200 feet wide. To make matters worse, their outward course often dulls the breaking waves and creates the illusion of calmer waters for inexperienced beachgoers. Lifeguards call rips “drowning machines.” Within the City of Stirling rips are nearly always marked by "Dangerous Current" or "No Swimming" signs like the ones below. Please do us all a favour and stay well clear of these areas. If you are in any doubt, don't go out, ask the Lifeguards or Beach Inspectors for advise on the best place to swim.

Today, rips kill more Australians than bushfires, floods, cyclones, and sharks combined.

There’s not one single message that works on all beaches. Sometimes swim parallel is great, sometimes it doesn’t work. Same for floating.

Rips are a complex, dynamic hazard and the multitude of variables—swimming ability, current strength, circulation, wave size—make the threat nearly impossible to solve with one-size-fits-all advice. No single “escape strategy” is appropriate all the time. If you’re not a strong swimmer, stay afloat and signal for help; if you can swim, consider paddling parallel to the beach toward breaking waves—though be mindful of the potential circulating current.

The best advise I can give is ALWAYS, ALWAYS swim at a patrolled beach, preferably between the red & yellow flags. If you get caught by a rip, relay float with it and raise an arm to attract attention of the Lifeguards. Remember the worst case is, when the Rip fades out, and they ALWAYS DO, you will have to simply swim or body surf your way back to the beach!


Rips don't kill, inexperience and panic does! 

Don't be a statistic, stay calm, relax and you will eventually be able to make your way back to shore.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

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Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. Professional lifeguards are trained to recognise drowning with many years of experience they know exactly what to look for, when and where. Parents, guardians, siblings and friends on the other hand, have learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us Aussies) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Many drowning victims never make a sound. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely ever seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under in the USA (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year in the USA about 375 of them will do so within 20 meters of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening. In Australia almost 300 people drown each year at a cost to our Aussie ecconomy of $1 Billion annually. Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment (Ed something that should be noted by the supporters and developers of drones dropping rescue rings etc)
5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

(Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006 (page 14))

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:

• Head low in the water, mouth at water level
• Head tilted back with mouth open
• Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
• Eyes closed
• Hair over forehead or eyes
• Not using legs – Vertical
• Hyperventilating or gasping
• Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway (caught in a rip)
• Trying to roll over on the back
• Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder.
• Spending too much time in the surf impact zone being smashed by the waves not making any real attempt to avoid or minimise the wave impacts
• Some will disguard their surf / boggie boards and try to swim back to shore
• Don't appear to be in control of their actions
• Swimming / floating in areas where they shouldn't be (rips / impact zone etc)

So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK – don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

If at all possible, never attempt a rescue unaided. Always try to take a floatation device with you.