Drowning

I regularly hear about all the trials and tribulations of having kids, from my friends who are parents. And of course I always half-jokingly (or maybe full-jokingly) make a comment that I'll just stick with dogs. Friday I went to lunch with a work friend and she told me about some of the stuff going on with her kids, and of course I made my typical statement....and then late that afternoon, she got a text from her son, something along the lines of "I'm ok, the cops are here, and told us we can't say anything right now." Of course, her first reaction was, "Ok, are you in trouble?"  A little while later I think he called her to tell her a little more of what's going on - while they were at the lake, one of his friends had gone under and nobody had seen him come back up. These kids are only 16 - so very young to have to die, or to have to deal with the death of a friend. I told her to keep me posted, and that I'd pray that they would find him soon. Some 40 hours later, they finally found him. I had kept hoping, Friday evening when she finally left, that they would find him playing a stupid prank and hiding from everyone. So very sad. He had in fact drowned - they found him about 40 hours later. The group of kids spent the weekend together, grieving. Last night there was a candlelight vigil for him. My guess is that he probably got a cramp or something. Drowning doesn't look the way it does in the movies - no yelling and waving the arms, slapping the water, etc. Be safe out there on the water!

From Wikipedia: 

"Contrary to the normal popularisation of drowning as a highly visible behavior, involving shouting, abrupt or violent movements such as splashing and waving, and visible difficulty—which is a related phenomenon, known as aquatic distress, which often but not always precedes drowning—the "instinctive drowning response" is noiseless and confined to subtle movements. 

While distress and panic may sometimes take place beforehand, drowning itself is deceptively quick and often silent. A person at, or close to, the point of drowning is unable to keep their mouth above water long enough to breathe properly and is unable to shout. Lacking air, their body cannot perform the voluntary efforts involved in waving or seeking attention. Involuntary actions operated by the autonomic nervous system involve lateral flapping or paddling with the arms to press them down into the water in the effort to raise the mouth long enough to breathe, and tilting the head back. As an instinctive reaction, this is not consciously mediated nor under conscious control."