Anyone know of young people who have drown wearing a wetsuit. I am doing research for prevention of drownings.

Question

I hear they are supposed to make it next to impossable to drown in because of bouncy and they keep you warm in cold water. Also I was trying to do a comparison between young adults and reckless water saftey, with factors like alcohol, the feeling of invincability because of youth, and also inexperience and recklessness. If you know of a story or a person could you please list it with contributing factors as I hope my reaserch will help with new training and teaching methods to prevent these in the future.

Answer 1

I will say as far as I know wetsuits have nothing to do with you drowning,they are made to keep your body warm in cold water when surfing, wakeboarding, boogie boarding what have yah! To prevent form drowning know how to swim and feel confident.

Answer 2

wetsuits are not intended to be used for bouyancy... it is supposed to keep you warmer when wet but only life jackets are clothing intended to keep you afloat.

Answer 3

I agree with the bouncy but I think Bill means that some people perceive a bouncy effect that it helps them stay up maybe 10% easier, I have noticed this effect.  Anyways here is my story i know from a bad day at diving, i didn't know the girl that well so I guess it doesn't hurt that much to write about it, and no drugs were used or anything like that but there was a POOR lack of judgment on her abilities.

We went diving with 3 friends, sally who drowned was girlfriend to Chris.  She wasn't your typical diver though, she was extremely athletic and had one of the best most perfect bodies I know, i never seen anyone fill a wetsuit like her, even used the lycra kind for the added s*x appeal.  Which I think was the wrong choice for cold water and help lead to her drowning.  Anyways like I said she was more into how she looked in a wetsuit then actual diving, thinking her athletic ability would compensate for lack of experience.  We started out, all gear checked and explored in some cold water, I noticed her getting cold cause she shivered and I gave the sign to point up to go up, so all three of us went to the surface and yes she said she was cold and told her to go back to the boat and warm up and we saw her do that.

Chris and I went back down, but being stubborn she went back down after we left with no partner.  apparently she got confused cause we found her away from the boat quite a ways.  So chris and I come up, can't find her in the boat and panic, so we get new tanks and dive down again looking for her.  We find her with all of her equipment taken off as she tried to reach the surface quickly.  We brought her up went to a hospital but no good luck unfortunately.  Even though the water was cold it just didn't protect her.

d**n I still get teary eyed reading that.