At 08:13 PM 1/25/00 -0800, you wrote: > >> From: Doug Lloyd <dlloyd_at_telus.net> > >> As has been mentioned on this list before, you never offer close-in >> assistance initially with a panicky swimmer, lest two victims emerge. I had >> a 250# male panic in a pool once, while he was horseplaying at the side. I >> came around from behind, grabbed his hair, pulled him out onto the deck >> (that's gotta hurt!). Jackie and crew, I forgot to mention I had help with the 250# at the poolside. I also needed "help" later as the guy was ready to pulverize me for yanking his hair out. I also forgot to mention that the reason I put in the blurb about the lifesaving rescue, was because dealing with "freaked out" kayakers is usually a lot different from the requirements and excesses often done during aquatic supervision. Calmness should always prevail. Most fears are usually irrational and often even overly dramatic on the part of the complainant, though the adrenaline flowing can often incapacitate an individual, as you said earlier. And, if you were leading the trip, you didn't do your homework or you have pushed people too hard, so you had better keep calm yourself and definitely not start barking orders to anyone. You may need to be decisive and didactic at times, but most people can be talked through a situation. I sure want people to continue with the sport. A bad first experience is to be avoided. Our new CRCA sea kayaking certification program in Canada requires participants at certain levels to be taken on overnight trips, so instructors here are going to have to be extra cautious and diplomatic. >I read on a water-rescue training site ( http://www.WaterOperations.com/ ) >that a six-year-old can drown an adult if they are panicking. So, I guess >even a small person panicking in the water can be a risky rescue, not to >mention 250#s 8-}. Risky if you don't no what you are doing as the rescuer. When we were developing standards here in BC for a sea kayaking program (before the CRCA came out with theirs), we seriously considered requiring that all instructors be qualified lifeguards, as there is so much material covered in terms of emergencies in aquatic environments. Fortunately, most sea paddlers never experience the thing we're talking about on this thread. >My experience with a panicky paddler was that she gave up paddling. >She was in a tandem kayak and her paddling partner, also female, was >struggling to paddle them both in a boat loaded with gear in some rough >conditions. One of the guys ended up towing them in. I hate that. This should not have happened. When I got my wife into paddling, we graduated by slow, incremental degrees, in order for her to slowly get introduced to it all. I even canceled our honeymoon paddle in Tofino when we arrived, as it was raining a bit hard and windy too, and I didn't want her first kayaking experience to be too rough. ><snip> > >> The Bottom Line: Be prepared for anything (including dogs in the water >> tired of dog-paddling). > >Which is a good point to put a doggie life preserver on your pet. They >*can* panick. About the time the lab was trying to climb on my head >while I was swimming alongside my boat, a swimmer was drowned by his >large pet dog that panicked in the water and attempted to get safety >where he was most familiar with it. Very sad. I'm glad you mentioned this, as sad as it was, 'cause people often spend time around the water and/or paddle about in a dream world, not realizing how dangerous it is or how many "weird" things can go wrong. Be prepared. Be prepared. Paddle wise, be wise around the water. Replace those expired flares. You know who you are out there in PW land who need to do this. Wear that PFD. Practice personal awareness at all times. I'll stop now. BC'in Ya Doug Lloyd *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jan 26 2000 - 00:22:24 PST
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