Rescuers confronted with the aquatic stress of swimmers

A feeling of dispossession, a breathing that accelerates, the heart that beats sham … The aquatic environment sometimes generates reactions anxiety. Which are transformed, in the worst situations, on death. For rescuers, each gesture is watched so as to assess the risks. Near the basins fitted out in the Seine, in Paris, the agents in yellow and red have a careful look at these behaviors. Because, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), drowning corresponds to “respiratory failure resulting from the submersion or from l’immersion in liquid medium ”.

Interventions in the Seine

Among the four stages of asphyxic drowningone of them is more and more observed: l’aquastress. According to a classification of the Institute of Health Surveillance (InVS), this state results in “hyperventilation, tachycardia, tremors and no liquid inhalation”. Questioned at the edge of the site in Bercy (12th), the supervisor Léa Catania claims that she was not confronted with this type of distress. On the other hand, for some of his colleagues, a intervention was necessary.

“This often happens with people who do not know how to swim well, who are not used to this level of depth or who do not expect current”

With an estimated background at five metersthe Seine offers a “more uncertain” environment than swimming pools. “Not seeing the background can also be a source of anxiety,” says Léa Catania.

If the stress caused by these factors is “impressive”, it leads sporadically to a deadly drowning. A phenomenon more present in the oceanic environmentwhere the strong currents can take bathers, notes Public Health France. But the phenomenon can also take place in water bodies, a priori less exposed to danger.

The importance of prevention

For the authorities, the prevention is thus fundamental to ward off the aquastress. At the edge of the largest basin on the Bercy site, the four supervisors carefully observe the movements of swimmers. “We quickly see who are the people to comfortable and those who pain», Note Léa Catania. A test of a few lengths is administered to “risky bathers,” she said. The evaluation can lead to a request for exit from the basin, in the event of failure.

This exercise carried out on-site is accompanied by a necessary port of yellow buoy. Unnecessary, this inflatable object keeps swimmers afloat. So far, no fatal drowning has been observed on the sites of Paris en Seine.

Personalize your news by adding your cities and media in favorite with my news.