Classification
Experts differentiate between distress and drowning. They also divide drowning into passive and secondary:
- Distress - these are people in trouble, but who still have the ability to keep afloat, signal for help and take actions.
- Drowning - these are people suffocating and in imminent danger of death within seconds. Drowning falls into two categories:
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- Passive drowning - people who suddenly sink or have sunk due to a change in their circumstances. Examples include people who drown in an accident, or due to sudden loss of consciousness or sudden medical condition.
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Active drowning - people such as non-swimmers and the exhausted or hypothermic at the surface, who are unable to hold their mouth above water and are suffocating due to lack of air. Instinctively, people in such cases perform well known behaviors in the last 20 - 60 seconds before being submerged, representing the body's last efforts to obtain air.
Notably such people are unable to call for help, talk, reach for rescue equipment, or alert swimmers even feet away, and they may drown quickly and silently close to other swimmers or safety.
Read more about this topic: Drowning