[SystemSafety] A Safety Issue, but not Tech - Drowning

[Les Chambers]

 Many of the drownings in Australia are Asian tourists who can’t swim but dive into our surf 
regardless.  They often get caught in rips , strong currents which drag them out to sea. A rip 
looks Deceptively calm. It usually only drags you out 200 m or so but if you’re not a strong 
swimmer and you panic it can be all over in minutes.  I often thought it would be a good idea for 
all airlines entering Australia to show a welcome video. “Welcome to Australia. This is what a rip 
looks like. Avoid them.“
Les

> An astonishing statistic. Of the 750 kids who drown annually in the US, half of them will do so
> within 25m of a parent or other adult. Why?
> 
> It is not a lot of kids, but it is evidently half-of-750 more than it needs to be.
> 
> The reason is: because few people are aware of the signs of drowning. I certainly wasn't until I
> read this. People become still in the water and don't move much - it's instinct. And if there is
> stuff going on around them - people having fun in the water - it can be that no one notices.
> https://www.soundingsonline.com/voices/drowning-doesnt-look-like-drowning
> 
> It was referenced in John Naughton's Observer column today and I thought it important to 
propagate
> as widely as possible.
> 
> There are quite a few issues like this of public safety which arise. For example, people 
obtaining a
> driver's licence in Germany have to have attended a first-aid course. There is also a law 
saying you
> must render help as you can, in any case of accident, danger or emergency (rather, it is 
phrased
> negatively: not doing so is a criminal offence punishable by up to a year in prison)
> https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/323c.html (in German, of course).
> 
> Compare this with the US: the murder of Kitty Genovese is a well-known incident
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese
> 
> Does anyone know comparative studies on how general policies such as compulsory first-aid 
courses
> for driver's-licence applicants work out? Local serious accidents in Bielefeld, especially road
> accidents and house fires, are well-reported in our local newspaper. But comparing accident 
rates
> and establishing efficacy/non-efficacy of prophylactic measures appears to be very hard in 
general,
> let alone with counterfactuals such as how many people in these-and-these accidents would 
have been
> worse off had the people at the scene not done this-and-this before the emergency services 
arrived.
> 
> PBL
> 
> Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
> MoreInCommon
> Je suis Charlie
> Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de



--
Les Chambers
les at chambers.com.au
+61 (0)412 648 992