How to Respond When Someone Is Pulled From a Pool

Drowning is quiet. There is rarely splashing or shouting, and a child can slip under the surface in the time it takes to answer the phone. If someone is pulled from a pool and is not responding normally, what you do in the next few minutes matters more than anything the ambulance crew can do later.

Get them out and send for help

Remove the person from the water as soon as it is safe to do so, taking care not to put yourself at risk. Lay them on their back on a firm surface. Shout for someone to call 000 and to bring a defibrillator if there is one nearby. If you are on your own, put your phone on speaker so that your hands stay free.

Check for a response and open the airway

Squeeze their shoulders and ask loudly whether they can hear you. If there is no response, tilt the head back gently and lift the chin to open the airway. Look and listen for normal breathing for up to ten seconds. Occasional gasping or noisy irregular breaths are not normal breathing, and you should treat them as though the person is not breathing at all.

Why rescue breaths come first in a water emergency

Most sudden collapses in adults are caused by a heart problem, so chest compressions on their own can keep someone going for a while. Drowning is different. The heart usually stops because the body has run out of oxygen, which makes getting air back into the lungs the priority. Australian resuscitation guidance is to give two initial rescue breaths in a drowning emergency before starting the usual cycle of thirty compressions to two breaths.

Keep going until help arrives

Push hard and fast in the centre of the chest, about one third of the depth of the chest, at a rate of one hundred to one hundred and twenty compressions each minute. Swap with someone else every couple of minutes if you can, because good compressions are tiring and quality drops quickly once you are fatigued. Do not stop to check for a pulse. Continue until the person starts breathing normally, until a paramedic takes over, or until you physically cannot continue.

Water in the lungs and vomiting

Do not waste time trying to drain water from the lungs, and never hold a casualty upside down. Vomiting is common during resuscitation. If it happens, roll the person onto their side, clear the mouth, then roll them back and carry on.

Practise before you need it

Reading the sequence is useful, but the reason people freeze in a real emergency is that they have never physically done it. Our CPR course runs for ninety minutes and drills resuscitation on adult, child and infant manikins until the order becomes automatic. Find a class near you and book online.