Shallow water blackout

[joecus]

My pool has steps as you described. How do you handle a must drain scenario? Get new liner installed?

Also, I wanted to post this to the “odds n ends/general interest” but it’s locked to me; if you think it’s appropriate, can you please put it where it belongs;

Here is a tragic pool accident that happened in a lap pool near my home here on Staten Island. Two men died from holding their breath. As a kid, I always did breath-holding games with my friends. Real scary. This pool is only 3.5 feet deep by 50 meter. The guy they revived died. Here is the article.

Staten Island drown horror
Training test kills military man at pool

Two strapping young men who were practicing breath-holding exercises at a Staten Island pool yesterday to prepare for military training were pulled out unconscious and one died -- after two lifeguards and 20 swimmers failed to spot them.
Bohdan Vitenko, 21, died at a hospital. His Air Force-bound buddy, Jonathan Proce, 21, was resuscitated and is in critical condition.
The men were yanked out of Lyons Pool in Tompkinsville at about 8:30 a.m., witnesses and authorities said.
Both men, who were in excellent shape, suffered cardiac arrest. Witnesses said they were in an area of the pool that was out of eyeshot of lifeguards.
"Lyons Pool is huge. So what's happening in the far, far corner is hard to see. If you're only two lanes away, it's impossible to see," said one witness, Janice Ellison, one of 37 poolgoers both in and out of the water.
The men were spotted floating face-down in the 3-foot-deep shallow section only when one of the two lifeguards called an end to the adult swim session.
"The lifeguards were beside themselves. They were giving them CPR. When they pulled them up, they were limp," said Ellison, 54.
"They were doing some sort of underwater breath-holding exercise," she added.
It's not clear if the duo was following an official training program, or if they had devised their own workout, said Lt. Col. Robert Roy, head of Air Force recruiting in New York.
Either way, the military advises against certain breath-holding exercises or swimming underwater at length to avoid "shallow water blackout," which can lead to drowning.

[joecus]

Ben, Hi - thanks for the info. Can you tell me what causes ph to drop? Mine went from about 7.4(Sunday) to 7.0 today?

Also, I forgot to ask you, have you ever heard of this "shallow water blackout,", that killed them?

Here is the link for the pool story. Thanks

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/s...Aqwu1yYESlH4kK

[PoolDoc]

Yes, I've heard of it. I've even seen it -- and smelled the vomit when the kid barfed while the lifeguard (who'd been inattentive) did rescue breathing.

The most common scenario is a group of middle school boys doing breath-holders . . . and one of the boys passing out while trying to avoid embarrassment.

[joecus]

Wow, very scary. I have a 6 year old son. I will make sure he knows this. My wife is the principal of a k-12 school. I will tell her. She has a newsletter, parents need to know about this. Any thought on why my PH is dropping? I do have another question. With regards to the health/safe/clean of a pool, does a high CYA need more cl to keep it safe? Or is the cya number only relevant for usage and stability?.

[PoolDoc]

Shallow water blackout is a common cause of drowning. Lifeguards should be, and sometimes are, trained to be on the lookout for activities which leads to this event.

As I understand it, there are two common scenarios that often precede this. The first -- swimmers or others training -- is the one in the article you referred to. Many elite senior USS swimmers do "breath-holders". My 16 year old son does. The second -- elementary or middle school boys competing in breath holding or underwater swims -- was involved in the drowning I saw. (BTW, that boy did recover.)

In the first case, those training should NEVER do breath holders without someone 'guarding' attentively.

In the second, parents and lifeguards need to watch out for competition with unequally skilled kids. Male ego gets involved, and the drowning victim is often the weaker, and embarrassed about it, swimmer.

In BOTH cases, swimmers need to be encouraged (or with boys) prevented from hyper-ventilation. As I understand it, 1 or 2 deep breaths is fine: more are not!