Are You a Potential Hero?

It is my opinion that there is a hero inside of every person, waiting for two things to happen: opportunity and circumstances.

The National Safety Council reports there are over five thousand children per year under the age of fourteen who lose their lives through drowning incidents nationwide.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 26% of children between the ages of one and four who die, are from drowning accidents. Fatal drowning continues to be the second leading cause of death (injury-related) with children from ages one to fifteen. Of the children who do survive, 92% are found within two minutes from the time they submerge, and of those children who die, close to 90% are found after 10 minutes. Nearly all of those children who require cardiopulmonary resuscitation ("CPR ") either die or are left with severe brain damage.

Most likely, you either know someone who drowned or know someone who lost a member of their family through a drowning accident. You may even have witnessed a drowning, or near drowning in your lifetime or no of someone who did.

Most drownings happen within the first one to two minutes from the time they submerge from exhaustion. For this reason, it is most unlikely that a drowning victim can have any hope of being saved by calling 911, or even in the time that it takes to summon help or even a lifeguard. In Shreveport Louisiana six teenagers 13 to 18 old from two separate families all drowned in the Red River after stepping off a ledge into an 18-foot sinkhole. In a chain reaction, each child pulled the next one into the sinkhole while they were attempting to save each other. All six drowned within three minutes, while several adults watched in horror helplessly listening to their children's horrifying screams of terror, pleading and begging for someone to help, as one by one they watched them slipped beneath the surface. Not only did none of the children or the adults know how to swim, there were no life jackets, rope, or flotation devices available to attempt a rescue from shore.

So tell me, if you were there when this happened, would the hero in you have been able to save even one of those children? Even if you do know how to swim, would you have been able to swim while pulling a frantically thrashing, teenager to shore? Or would you have become yet another victim, pulled under by them during their desperate attempt to use you as their flotation device in an attempt to keep their head above water?

This is what I meant by the terms opportunity and circumstances. Opportunity is the simple portion of the equation which is nothing more than being in a specific place at a specific time. However, in a situation like this one, even a trained lifeguard would have found it impossible to save six kids at one time.

Circumstances are what make all the difference between life and death. If any of those adults standing onshore had a rope, would this tragic outcome have been different? My guess is, in the two or three minutes that it took for all six of these children to drown, there is no doubt that if a rope, life ring, rope bag, or rescue disk were available at a moment's notice, there is a good chance that all would have survived.

I appeal to that hero in you to never visit a swimming pool, river, lake, or ocean, nor board a boat or yacht, without having a life vest, throw rope, life ring, or rescue disk in tow. Since a life vest, rope, or life ring can only be thrown 40 to 50 feet, a rescue disk is the best device available. A rescue disk is the official water and ice rescue tool used by Coast Guard, lifeguards, border patrol, fire and rescue teams, and state police nationwide. Rescue disks are simply a large Frisbee-type disc with rope wound around the outside. As it travels through the air to the victim for over 100 feet, the rope unwinds as it spins to its destination. By throwing the rescue disc beyond the drowning victim, it can then easily be pulled to the victim from shore, with the victim grabbing either the rope or the disk. The disk has 5 pounds of flotation to keep their head above water while being pulled to shore.

The two main reasons why a rescue disk is so valuable in saving lives are:

unlike the other devices, it can be deployed in seconds, by even a child or person in a wheelchair; it can be tossed over 100 feet, without the need of the rescuer risking his or her own life by entering the water.

When considering the value of a human life, an investment of $50-$150 for a Frisbee-style rescue disk is a small price to pay and will allow that hero in you to emerge when opportunity presents itself. The life it saves may be your own.

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