I. Climbing the ladder:
How a surfer can identify drowning
* Published in Norwegian for the surf magazine SurfNorge 12. July, 2018; translated and edited 9. July, 2023
Just a few days ago, yet another pro-surfer was rescued at Backdoor. A photog and a few surfers reacted instinctively and managed to hold Dusty Payne’s lifeless body on the water’s surface (1). Lifeguards joined the effort and the team effectively managed to bring him to shore, resulting in Payne taking a breath after two minutes of unconsciousness. The video reminds us of an eerily similar rescue about 2 years ago when Evan Geiselman’s life was saved by a bodyboarder right there at Pipe (2). These two pro surfers are living today due to the reaction-time and the skills of the others right around them in the water. Many of the most critical rescues end up involving us surfers. You can’t predict when it’s going to happen, but at some point in your life as a surfer you can almost guarantee that you’re gonna need to help someone who’s fighting for their life.
Now, think about the place you usually surf. It’s hard to think of any spot in Norway that’s so close to help as Backdoor. There’s no lifeguards on our beaches, and in larges swathes of the country an ambulance is much more than 5 minutes away. In that way, especially in Norway, we surfers and watermen are each other’s lifeline if someone is in need of help in the ocean. How long would it take for you to get this person out of the water where you surf? The correct answer to this question for anyone other than a pro should be: “too long, let’s practice to get better.” For this reason, we’ve made a series of articles that focus on the most important themes in lifesaving.
The first step is being able to identify someone who is actively drowning. When you read this, you may think it’ll be obvious when you see it, but there aren’t actually many people who can identify drowning without training. Mario Vittone, an authority in drowning research, has written an article called “Drowning doesn’t look like drowning,” (3) where he describes a troubling reality: the majority of people don’t realize someone is drowning, even when they’re looking directly at the person. When I was 14 years old, I thought drowning looked like how it was portrayed in Hollywood movies: hysterical screaming with flailing arms. Due to this, my very rescue came as a surprise. I was surfing at a beach full of people. The sun was shining, the water was just starting to warm up. The waves were small, but very clean for how late in the morning it was. I was shooting the shit with a buddy as we instinctively used a rip to take us back out to the lineup. He points inquisitively at something 25 yards to our right. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but suddenly it dawns on me that it’s a child being pulled out in the rip - I couldn’t even see the rest of his head because his head was pulled back with just his face barely above the surface. His mouth was open and just barely above the water’s surface. His hair was pushed down over his face, but I could see his eyes - it looked like he had seen a ghost. I yelled over to him, “hey little man, you ok?” No response. I changed course and started paddling over to him, yelling again. It wasn’t until he clutched onto my board as I pulled up along aside him that I realized he was just about to go under.
This mental image I have of this rescue has been the foundation for my learning what the “Instinctive Drowning Response” (4) looks like. It’s called instinctive because the buy has lost all form for rational thought. The only thing he’s trying to do it hold his mouth over water - the body has an automatic response in an effort to keep breathing for as long as possible.
According to the United States Lifesaving Association, you should be aware of these signs (5):
head lying low in the water with chin up, where the mouth ends up being right on the surface
face towards the beach and waves hitting the back of the head - this is why their face and eyes get covered with hair
they have an absent or empty haze with wide-open eyes
abnormal breathing like hyperventilation or gasping for air
“climbing the ladder” - it looks like they’re climbing an invisible ladder
they don’t respond when called to
This article is intended to be the first in a series. The goal with these articles is to give you a foundation, on which you can build off of to become more confident in your own abilities to save a life. I the following articles I’ll write more on communication, rescue and CPR. We hope that these articles spark some interest in lifesaving and first-aid on the sand, maybe leading some to seek out more information on the topics. There’s so much to learn in these fields, but we hope that these articles serve as a nice starting point.
Thank you for reading and thereby taking the next step towards improving your lifesaving abilities. Together we can contribute to reducing the global burden of drowning.
References:
Prodanovich, Todd. 8. jan 2018. Dusty Payne Hospitalized After Backdoor Wipeout: https://www.surfer.com/features/dusty-payne-hospitalized-backdoor-wipeout/
The Inertia. 7. dec 2015. Evan Geiselman Suffers Near-Death Wipeout at Pipeline: https://www.theinertia.com/surf/evan-geiselman-suffers-near-death-wipeout-at-pipeline-rescued-by-bodyboarder-mick-fanning-and-team-after-knocked-unconscious/
Vittone, Mario. 3. maj 2010. Drowning doesn’t look like drowning: http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/
Video of the Instinctive Drowning Response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fyvtNewabM
Open Water Lifesaving: The United States Lifesaving Association Manual, 3rd Edition
