May 10, 2024: Hawai'i snorkel deaths continue
Wife blames state of Hawaii for her husband’s snorkeling death after autopsy ‘didn’t make sense’
Snorkeling is often marked as accessible to everyone based on the ease with which you can buy gear at your local general retailer like Walmart. However, snorkeling does require a specific level of water competence with specialty equipment on the open ocean, and it can be complicated by things such as recent air travel.
A woman is blaming the State of Hawaii for insufficient education surrounding Rapid Onset Pulmonary Edema (ROPE) which can occur in snorkeling activities after extended air travel, such as flying to Hawaii from the mainland. She is alleging her husband died specifically because he (they) were unaware of any risks associated with snorkeling too soon after flying to Hawaii.
If you are interested in hearing more about this topic, a few years ago, I recorded an interview with the Snorkel Safety Study regarding the risks of full-face snorkels. "Between 2009 and 2018, ROPE – a form of hypoxia, or asphyxiation, a person’s lungs fill with bodily fluid, resulting in a difficulty in breathing – was linked with 206 Hawaii drownings."
City examining drug incident at Aquatic Centre
The opioid crisis and increased levels of homelessness due to skyrocketing costs of living and untreated mental health conditions during the COVID-19 Pandemic mean that our lifeguards are increasingly dealing with a whole new set of client behaviors. How do we account for this in our inservice training or even our initial lifeguard training? It is appropriate for the police to be called, but what happens in the interim until they arrive?
Miami Beach reaches $2M settlement with family of rec leader who drowned in city pool
PJ was a summer camp leader with the Miami Beach Parks & Recreation Department who came to the outdoor swimming pool on his day off to say goodbye to his campers from that week. PJ was pushed into the deep end of the pool where he struggled for 12 minutes. Video footage of the lifeguard on duty shows that he was using his smartphone during the incident, and did not notice PJ struggling in the water. PJ was taken off a ventilator in hospital 10 days after the incident.
In addition to possible lifeguard negligence, there is the perennial question of why does it remain socially acceptable to push people into the pool?! Ddespite the deaths and paralysis that have occurred because of it.
Please consider discussing "push culture" with the team at your pool and/or amending facility signage to educate bathers about the very real dangers of these types of behaviors.
Thanks so much for being here.
Katie Crysdale
Lakeview Aquatic Consultants Ltd.