What is Shallow Water Blackout?
Shallow water blackout (also known as hypoxic blackout) can affect anyone who is breath-holding, even the physically fit swimmer. It is especially seen in competitive swimmers, Navy SEALs, snorkelers, spear-fishermen or anyone who free-dives. Blackouts cut across the spectrum of free-diver training affecting all levels. No one is protected from succumbing to an underwater blackout.
About the Milners:
Our son Whitner died in our family pool from shallow water blackout. He died needlessly because he did not understand the body’s physiology related to hypoxic training. Shallow Water Blackout Prevention is an organization our family founded in honor of Whitner, to raise awareness of this phenomenon and to prevent injuries and deaths from this silent killer.
Comments
Thank you for your dedication to this cause. In 1991, my son who was an accomplished swimmer and a lifeguard, suffered this condition and drowned. They told me he did not have enough water in his lungs to have actually drowned. He had been racing with some other young men and then went underwater as he often did. This time he did not come up and unfortunately, was not noticed for too long. At that time the condition was not well known and I am so thankful for your spreading of the word. Every pool should have a warning of this as should every swimming class and lifeguard training. My heart is still broken and the hole will never be filled.
I'm watching Bear Grylls: Breaking Point. This episode is with two men who are dealing with trauma that has to do with water. One of them survived the tsunami in Indonesia. The other lost his son, who wanted to be a Navy SEAL, to drowning. They think that it's from something called shallow water blackout. I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up, and found this article.
I graduated class of '88 from Blue Springs, Missouri. I've always loved the water, even before I taught myself to swim at 8 years old.
I lengthened my lung capacity the summer I was 17, from the standard for singers and wind instrument players of 20 seconds, to 85 seconds. I could dive in, swim around on the bottom(I could see other swimmers flipping out a little), then leisurely swim to the surface, and still have plenty of air.
I guess I was taking more of a risk than I knew.
