I have a poor memory. However, there are certain moments that are ingrained in that little bit of storehouse of my memory banks.I was reading a Yahoo article this morning. It was titled, Drowning Looks Different Than You Think. It quickly brought back an image from early motherhood that sends shivers when I think of it almost 30 years later. This is a photo of Tiffany's first swim lesson. She's on the far left.
Tiffany was not yet four years old. Peggy of Musings of Meggie and I decided to take Aquacise, a class being taught by a neighbor while our kids took swimming lessons in the other half of the large pool. I would look over every so often to see how Tif was doing. There were about seven children with two teachers. It wasn't enough.
I looked over at one point to see Tiffany going under and the teachers occupied with another child, not noticing that she had disappeared underwater. She didn't scream. She couldn't. I could see the top of her head and I immediately started trying to run over. Do you know you can't run in water? I felt like everything was in slow motion until I finally found my voice to scream and get over to her. The teachers swung their attention over to her and pulled her up before I got to her and poor Tif was sputtering and crying.
She didn't learn to swim that summer. When she was in grade school, her friends were joining a swim program and she decided to do it, too. Tiffany eventually became a very accomplished and graceful swimmer winning quite a few swimming ribbons and trophies in high school. She was also part of a synchronized swimming team.
However, her early start in water was frightening and as this Yahoo article mentioned, drowning victims often cannot yell for help.
I know.
Oi veh! And what did the teachers have to say about that??
ReplyDeleteWhen she was 3 Naomi just nonchalantly jumped into the pool while my grandmother was talking to me (in Miami). It was the deep end and she kept going down but not up. I jumped in and pushed her back to the surface, trying to come out with a smile on my face so she would not freak out. Something like, "Oh how brave you were but next time TELL me when you want to jump in."
I have had several nightmares on that subject since then.
That would be a nightmare!! Thank heaven you were keeping an eye on her even from a distance! So thankful all turned out well! I would have had nightmares, too! Hope you have a great day, Kay!
ReplyDeleteSylvia
Glad to see Tiff recovered and was not so traumatized and she went on to win swimming ribbons! Good for her!
ReplyDeleteOh how frightening that must have been for you. It's the sort of thing that give mothers recurring nightmares for the rest of their lives. Somehow I taught myself to swim when I was about two. We used to go to an outdoor swimming pool (and there's very few of those in England these days) which had an island in the middle. My mother lost sight of me one day and finally saw me standing on the island. Before she could panic even more I apparently set off and swam back to her. I can't remember a time when I didn't swim, and taught both my sons myself; I wasn't keen to trust them to other people.
ReplyDeleteGoodness, Kay, I can't keep up with your writings!!!@#$#@#@#@%%%
ReplyDeleteMy son at around 8 or so had the same experience, I was maybe 10 feet from where he was in the same pool but he'd wandered over to a deeper end. I moved over to him quickly but knew I had time. He was a couple feet under water by then and trying to get up but failing but looked calm. He was looking straight at me, I reached under and pulled him up but he hadn't been submerged long and wasn't panicked.
I've been so close to drowning so many times I've lost count. Well, sorta. The circumstances range all over the map, from bodysurfing in huge waves (big enough to closeout Makapuu) where it is violent and lots of high energy struggling in foam, which you cannot breathe, but which is not dense enough to support you so you cannot swim in it; to deep underwater, freediving for fish. Shallow water blackout happens more frequently than people admit, but if you are accomplished at breath hold diving, you can push the limits very easily as you get more confident. It is seductive because the process is so easy, even peaceful, you don't drown, you don't struggle; don't remember it; you just extinguish like a light because of the physiology of it. The partial pressure of oxygen in your bloodstream drops off quickly as you leave the bottom, so you go from 2 atmospheres (at 30 feet) to negative something as the air in your lungs expands as you rise in the water column. Oxygen actually starts migrating the OTHER WAY, from your bloodstream back into your lungs and this is the threshold that shuts your brain down. At first you lose your color vision, the water and everything turns black and white, then it gets hard to think straight. Difficult to focus. A cone or hole of light is in front of you and it constricts the longer you stay under. If it closes, you won't remember any of it. You have to fight it, WILL it open and stay awake. Hardest part is, you are no longer aware of your feet, impossible to tell if you are even still kicking for the surface, you cannot feel any of your extremities. It is easy to just let it be, and actually a nuisance to try to survive. Uncomfortable, like waking up when you want to turn over and go back to sleep some more. Good freedivers flirt with it constantly, it becomes an old friend.
walt
Oh my, every parent's worst nightmare. Sends shudders down my spine.
ReplyDeleteWhat a frightening memory to have stored away, Kay. I can see why you can't shake it, but I wish you could. Thank heavens for the happy ending, huh?
ReplyDeleteyikes!
ReplyDeleteAloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
That must have been awful for your to witness. Glad everything turned out all right in the end.
ReplyDeletescary experience, it's so important to teach your little ones to swim young. My oldest son taught their son when he was just a baby. Dad was the teacher one on one. best way!
ReplyDeleteScary! I was lucky that my parents had a pool and my girls learned to swim "playfully". First wearing the swim "thingy´s" (don´t know what they´re called) around their arms and with practice they could swim without them.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very frightening image that you are living with. The up side is that you have so many more positive images of Tif in the pool.
ReplyDeleteI have never learned to swim. When I was growing up in the rural Oregon we didn't have access to pools. Swimming was done in the local swimming holes of rivers. There were no lessons. To this day I'm not much of a water person.
Just reading this was scary even though I knew it would have a "happy" ending. I can imagine that living through it was frightening!
ReplyDeleteI experienced drowning before in school before..really as u said, cannot scream for help, u got to get up from the bottom of the pool yourself.. since then, i fear water till now.. sigh..
ReplyDeleteWhat Walt writes is very new to me and very scary.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. Your heart just stops and the world is in slow motion at that moment. We used to have a pool and I was so vigilant with my girls but one day my mother was sitting on the side and little A was standing right next to her and went in. So very quick.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely terrifying. No wonder the nightmare recurs.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, a boy at my children's primary school (5 to 11) drowned in the school pool during a swimming lesson. He got a finger stuck in the filter at the bottom and the teacher couldn't free him. She later had a baby boy and called him after the child that drowned.
Did the swimming teachers ever say they were sorry? When my son was nine years old he was saved from drowning by his cousin. I know how scared you must of been.
ReplyDeleteOne of my second cousins drown in lake Erie while swimming with his brother ..something they did as they lived near the lake. You never know and have to be prepared..Michelle
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