Tragedy of teenagers drowning in wild swimming during summer
Industry insiders call for reinforcement of water safety net
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Sun Tianjiao, a trainee reporter of this newspaper
"All four boys drowned, and the cries of their families resounded throughout the forest."
Lao Yang, the captain of a Blue Sky Rescue Team in Jiangxi Province, still remembers a youth drowning accident.
During the summer vacation that year, several primary school students from the same school went to play by the reservoir far away from the city. One of them accidentally slipped while washing his hands by the reservoir, and the other three rushed to pull him, but they all fell into the water. inside.
Lao Yang and others rushed to the scene after receiving the report, it was nearly 12 o'clock in the night, and they were helpless and sad.
Tragedy of teenagers drowning in summer has been staged frequently in recent years.
According to statistics from public reports, a reporter from the "Rules of Law Daily" found that since June this year alone, there have been dozens of drowning incidents of young people.
According to data released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021, drowning is the number one killer of accidental deaths among primary and secondary school students.
More than 80% of juvenile drownings occur each year in open water.
A number of industry insiders who were interviewed by reporters said that the water temperature in these waters is usually lower than one meter, and people are prone to cramps and lose control in the water. Once entangled, it is difficult to escape and drowns.
It is recommended to speed up the construction of an all-round and multi-angle anti-drowning mechanism, and work together to build a "safety net" in the waters.
Wild Swimming Hidden Risks
Frequent drowning accidents
On July 7, a child drowning accident occurred in Hehe City, Gannan Prefecture, Gansu Province, and 5 people lost their vital signs after being rescued. United; On July 3, a 10-year-old boy fell into the water in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province and unfortunately drowned...
In just one week, there have been several incidents of drowning and drowning of young people in many places, which is heartbreaking.
It is worth noting that the reporter found that most of these drowning incidents occurred in open waters in the wild, and some even occurred in waters where swimming is clearly prohibited.
Su Shaojun, head of the search and rescue team of the Shanxi Blue Sky Rescue Team, has participated in two drowning rescue operations this year, both of which were caused by drowning of young people swimming in waters where swimming is prohibited.
In his view, some teenagers are "not afraid of tigers" and are blindly confident in their swimming skills. Even if their parents repeatedly tell them to pay attention to safety, they should fight against their parents out of rebellious psychology. Cognitive, it is equivalent to the still water of the swimming pool, when you encounter an unexpected situation after entering the water, you panic, increasing the risk of drowning.
Sun Minjie, deputy head of the water rescue team of the Shanxi Blue Sky Rescue Team, has participated in hundreds of water rescue operations.
According to him, if drowning occurs, 95% of the drowning people have lost their vital signs when rescuers arrive at the scene, and there are few survivors. "The probability of drowning people alive is very small."
"Ordinary people will basically lose consciousness if they are in the water for more than 10 minutes, and drowning often occurs in some unknown rivers and lakes in the suburbs. It takes a certain amount of time for rescuers to arrive at the scene. Fortunately, the drowning was completed within 5 minutes. It was successfully rescued, but there is still a 70% chance of causing irreversible brain damage." Wang Yue, captain of Binhe Road Fire Rescue Station of Taiyuan City Fire Rescue Detachment, Shanxi Province, told reporters that his team had only successfully rescued the drowning person twice. Because they happened to practice in the nearby waters, they were rescued in time after someone called the police.
According to a number of interviewed industry insiders, swimming in unidentified waters may also encounter whirlpools and require superb swimming skills to break free, but most teenagers in wild swimming have not received professional training.
In addition, the soil conditions on the shores of the uncontrolled waters are complex. A large number of pedestrians pass through the soft sand pits, and they are easy to fall into the water if they are not careful. The water temperature below one meter in the wild waters is low, which is easy to cause the drowning people to cramp and lose their physical strength. control.
In addition, the underwater situation in the wild waters is unknown. Weeds, garbage bags, ropes and branches are all "invisible killers", and it is difficult for drowning people to break free once they are entangled.
Su Shaojun was deeply impressed by a rescue.
A primary school class organized students and their parents to attend a bonfire party by the reservoir. During the football, a student went into the water to pick it up, but the location happened to be the reservoir dam. The reservoir on the mountain was releasing water, and the water flow was extremely fast. The students were immediately washed away as soon as they got into the water, and the sediment, water plants and other debris on the bottom of the water were entangled in them and could not surface.
Rescuers use sonar to detect underwater, but when the sonar encounters debris such as water plants, it only displays the picture of debris, which is extremely difficult to search and rescue.
Finally, on the 8th day, the deceased student was salvaged ashore.
Multiple measures to prevent drowning
Beware of Governance Blind Spots
The risk of drowning and the extremely low survival rate make it essential to guard against wild swimming and diving.
In recent years, in order to prevent the drowning problem in summer, not only have warning signs been set up, publicity and patrol supervision have been intensified, but also early warning and reward systems have been successively introduced.
For example, the Department of Education of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has sorted out the water data of drowning incidents in the region over the years, established a database of drowning risk points for primary and secondary school students in Guangxi, and formed a warning map of drowning risk points for primary and secondary school students in Guangxi, which was released to the public.
The Education and Sports Bureau of Meishan City, Sichuan Province has introduced a system of "early warning and reward for private launching". If it is verified to be true, the first warning person will be rewarded with a 100 yuan phone bill recharge card.
For the primary and secondary school students involved in the early warning, all the qualifications for the evaluation will be cancelled, and they will be included in the comprehensive quality evaluation files of primary and secondary school students.
According to Kou Liping, a professor at the School of Public Security of the People's Public Security University of China and director of the Public Security Emergency Police Teaching and Research Office, the greatest significance of linking drowning prevention with rewards and punishments is to mobilize the whole society to participate in the prevention of juvenile drowning incidents through rewards and to form a common society. To prevent the environment of drowning of young people, strengthen the supervision on the safety and social level of young people, and weave a dense social prevention and control network.
"The drowning prevention education for young people is also advancing with the times." Su Shaojun said that in the past, he mostly reminded everyone to pay attention to prevention, not to go to the water and not to swim in the wild, but now he has also joined the education and training on the knowledge of calling for help and rescue.
In addition, a content is specially added for teenagers, that is, if your companion falls into the water, don’t panic or be afraid, reduce the risk to a controllable range, call the police in time, and don’t run home for fear of being scolded and miss the rescue. opportunity.
However, while taking multiple measures to strengthen prevention, rescuers and experts have also paid attention to the blind spots of youth drowning prevention.
For example, Su Shaojun said that when the waters are wide and long, even if the management personnel are increased, the phenomenon of swimming in the forbidden waters cannot be prevented.
However, some remote waters just put up warning signs, which do not have a strong restraint effect.
Many schools also do not have the ability to train swimming skills.
In addition, he also noticed that parental supervision, as a key part of preventing children from drowning, often "falls off the chain", and there is a certain gap between the "be careful" that parents often tell them to "pay attention to safety" and the "be careful about safety" that children can understand and accept. It is difficult to make children fully aware of where the danger is by simply admonishing them.
Kou Liping also pointed out that the current level of safety education for young people is generally weak, and schools, society, and families have not formed an effective and intuitive publicity and education system, and many safety education is superficial and mere formality.
In addition, the lack of a safe hydrophilic environment and summer conditions, and the lack of summer recreational activities that can attract young people, also make many young people choose wild swimming and have accidents.
Blocking and sparse tight combination
prevent drowning
So, how should we build an all-round and multi-angle anti-drowning mechanism?
According to Chen Meng, a member of the Administrative Law Research Association of the China Law Society and director of the Administrative Law and Administrative Litigation Law Professional Committee of the Beijing Lawyers Association, preventing juvenile drowning depends on both "blocking" and "draining".
"Sparse" should focus on the causes of drowning incidents, and take measures from four aspects: family education, school education, lack of social management responsibilities, and the government's administrative planning does not pay enough attention to the construction of safe waters in underdeveloped areas along the river, river, and sea. corresponding measures.
"Parents or other guardians of minors should strengthen the guardian's legal responsibilities and improve their awareness of outdoor safety protection. The school's safety education class should not be a mere formality, and professional swimming coaches should be equipped to teach students life safety rescue knowledge and swimming skills. "Chen Meng said.
Chen Meng also mentioned that residents' committees and villagers' committees should assist relevant government departments in supervising the entrusted care of minors, and should report to the relevant government departments in a timely manner if they find that the entrusted person lacks the ability to take care of, or is lazy in performing their care duties, etc. The parents or other guardians of minors shall help and urge the entrusted person to perform the duty of care.
At the same time, the people's governments at all levels shall create conditions to establish and improve venues and facilities suitable for the cultural life of minors.
Kou Liping suggested establishing a systematic youth safety education system, scientifically assessing the risks that teenagers may face, introducing safety education standards for minors, and exploring safety education methods that meet the characteristics of teenagers' psychological behavior.
Promote youth summer vacation planning with multiple interactions between families, schools, and society, so that there are arrangements for summer vacations, and safety is not relaxed.
Regarding the protection measures in the water area, Kou Liping believes that the main method is to use physical protection to prevent young people from going into the water unattended, or slipping into the water due to playing near the water, such as setting isolation railings, buffer belts, warning signs, etc.
It is also possible to carry out full-coverage prevention and control of the waters through personnel patrols, drone patrols, etc., real-time monitoring, dynamic early warning, and prevent young people from entering the waters at the first time.
If an accident does happen, accidentally falling into the water or drowning while swimming, Wang Yue said, first of all, try to stay calm and try to keep your face up; don’t stretch your hands and arms over your head, because it’s more likely to cause your body to go down with your arms up. Fall down and place on your sides.
Keep a steady breathing rate and take deep and shallow breaths to increase your buoyancy and wait for rescue.
"Tell minors that they must not organize a rescue if their companions fall into the water, because they do not have the ability to rescue, and do not use a hand-in-hand rescue method. Once this ladder-type rescue method fails, it will easily lead to everyone falling. , to seek the help of adults around you as soon as possible and call the police in time." Wang Yue said.
Graphics / Li Xiaojun