WHY SWIMMERS DROWN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10032, 20 January 1896, Page 3

WHY SWIMMERS DROWN.

| TO TH& EDITOR. Sir,—Until about three years ago I, in | common with most other swimmers, believed that the only reason why good swimmers were drowned alter a short immersion in tho water, was that they were seized with cramp. I shall never forgot seeing a man fall overboard from a Transatlantic steamer, and sink withiu a few yards of the lifebelt, and after certainly not more than three minutes' immersion; and he wus said to be a good swimmer. We all of us agreed, at that time, that either he lad been attacked by a shark or by cramp. A personal experience of a very unpleasant kind has shown one that there may be at least two other causes for the sudden sinking of good swimmers. I may say that having been a swimmer from boyhood, and perfectly practised in every kind of swimming (on the side, back, with one arm only, and with only one arm and leg) I was quite at home in tho water, and could do anything except, sink—and that I never could do. Some three years ago, travelling in the North, I stopped for tho night at a hotel near which ran one of those deep, dark, silent rivers, with high-wooded banks, the waters of which for miles hardly see the sun. I had never bathed in one before, and when I dived in from a platform, I thought when I rose to the surface that I had jumped into melted ico. At the same time 1 felt a sensation in my left chest such as I had never experienced before—a kind of dull pain, with difficulty of breathing, and complete inability to fill the left lung, I thought these feelings would pass off after I had warmed myself a little with swimming, but I soon found that I had not the breath to keep swimming, and it was as much as I could do to reach the steps. Now had I jumped from a boat, and swam straight away from it, I should have been too much exhausted to get back, and should have sunk like a stone. When I got back to the hotel 1 could not restore the circulation until I had had a huge mustard plaster on the chest, ' A few days ago I was swimming out from the bathing place at Devonport, when I was quite suddenly attacked : by asthma—a disease which has troubled me a good deal during the last few years. I immediately turned to the shore, knowing that I was out of my depth, and > I swam as far as I could. And then came the ourious feeling that not tfven to save my life could I make another stroke, for want of breath—l was not in the least fatigued—so I let myself go and 1 went down " flop," just up to my ohin, when I felt ground. I rested a moment or two for breath, and thbn slowly waded in. 1 Now, had I been out a few yards-farther, I should ■ have been drowned, for, strange to. say, it never once occurred to me to turn on my hack and float. It is a thing I never practised. I used Jo swim but never float. v ,' • Perhaps no ono would get a fit of spasmodic asthma for the first time by simply plunging into cold water, but anybody might get con* gestion of one or both lungs. ; I had been a

swimmer for ; 50 years before I expertenced cither state, but I cannot help thinking that such accidents might ex-' plain many of the deaths of good swimmers. I may say that I was perfectly cool on both occasions, and at Devonport ' allowed myself to sink without calling out to - two young men who were seated on the rocks • ' about a dozen yards from me. And I remember thinking as I went down, " I wonder whether the spasm will cease as soon as the blood is loaded with carbonic acid." But the question exoited very little curiosity, as it seemed to me in that case I should be too comatose to make any effort, It is astonishing how many tilings pass through the mind when one thinks one is drowning. For instance, I remember thinking, " Hang it! I must get out of the way of using that oldfashioned term-carbonic acid-carbon dioxide."— am, etc., R. H. Bakewkll, M.l). Beach Road, Devonport, January 17th.