Helping Water Disasters: The Rules of Salvation

All people who are going to swim on hot days should know and follow the rules to ensure their safety on the water. Providing assistance to those in distress on the water in most cases is provided by specially trained and well-trained rescuers, but only in those cases when you swim in designated areas. But many people choose lakes and ponds for recreation, not equipped with beaches and not equipped with rescue equipment. Naturally, rescue professionals in such reservoirs do not exist. In such situations, helping those in distress on the water is highly dependent on the skills and determination of ordinary people in the vicinity.

Rescue equipment

In addition to the ability to swim, a person trying to save a drowning person should be able to use a variety of devices that can help in the rescue operation and accelerate it. In a shipwreck, providing assistance to those in distress on water depends to a large extent on themselves: they must put on life jackets or bibs, organize themselves in boats or rafts, and if they get into the water, make every effort to get to the rescue boats or at least circles. If the disaster, so to speak, is individual, then the improvised means should be used by those who can help those in distress on the water: get to a drowning boat or boat, throw an end to it or life buoys (if any) from a pier or motorboat.

Salvation of a drowning man

A person who knows how to swim well and who is nearby should remember that panic makes the victim clutch at any support, as a result of which he interferes with his salvation and can drown the one who came to the rescue. Therefore, assisting those in distress on water should be competent. The following techniques must be used:

1. Sailing behind, outside the zone of capture of the sinking. He is picked up by the armpit, the right arm and shoulder are fixed, and in this form is towed to the boat or the shore, his head should be kept above the water.
2. Outstretched hands grab the head: all fingers on the cheeks, except for the little fingers, which are located under the chin. Transported by sinking on the back.
3. Capture under both armpits.
4. Arm grip. The victim is towed on his side.
5. Capture by the collar (if sinking in clothes) or by the hair.
   

If the victim nevertheless clings to the rescuer, he must free himself from his grip, even using force. When capturing brushes, they sharply turn towards the thumbs of the drowning man, who at the same time is repelled by his legs. With a grip on the neck from the front, a push is made into the chin with clamping of the nostrils. When the neck is clamped behind, the lifeguard abruptly turns the elbow up, and dives under it. Freed, the lifeguard unfolds the victim with his back to himself and pulls him to the shore.

Salvation sank to the bottom

If a person, due to loss of consciousness or exhaustion, sinks to the bottom and lies face up, they swim towards him from the side of the head, grab his armpits and float to the surface. In the face-down position, the approach is made from the side of the legs, the grip is again under the armpits, and when it comes up, the sinking person turns upside down. The main assistance to those in distress on the water, who have lost consciousness and sunk to the bottom, begins already on land: a person is freed from the water that has got inside, they are given artificial respiration and, if necessary, a closed heart massage.

Distress alert actions

First of all, it should be noted that providing assistance to ships and people in distress on the water is mandatory. A captain who has ignored the world-famous SOS signal is criminally punished under Article 270 of the Russian Federation (as amended in 2003 - No. 162-F3), regardless of what motives were the basis for the refusal. The first measures taken by the captain and his vessel upon receipt of a distress signal are as follows:

1. Inform rescuers about the incident with the coordinates.
2. Make an attempt to contact the sinking ship, moving in its direction.
3. At the same time, prepare for rescue operations: check chipmunks for towing rescue craft, cargo cranes - to hold a sinking ship (if possible) and lift boats, nets and storm ladders - to facilitate lifting people out of the water. At the same time, medicines and dressings are checked, and the crew is instructed in the provision of primary medical care.

At the same time, the ship going to the rescue must keep in touch and coordinate the actions taken with rescuers and other ships heading to the crash site.