It makes it clear they were swimming, not dive training. With two involved, I wonder if it was not some other external factor.

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Anything without bottles on would be considered swimming in that world. Buoyant ascents, crossovers, etc are all considered "swim" training.

RIP warriors.

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Formerly TriBrad02

I think people would be surprised to find out how many people die after making it through BUDs/Selection/what ever course you've got to get through but before they ever get put on a special ops team.

My friend in Special ops had 3 people die during his operators course

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I'm a Naval Aircrew instructor and I have to requal the helo dunker every four years, but those operator guys so some serious shit underwater.

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"I would definitely smell her seat after a century ride"

We had a drowning last year in a local pool. Young guy going into the Navy with hopes of being a SEAL. He was doing some sort of breath drills in the deep end of the pool. Came up for a breath, went back down and never surfaced again. By the time the guard realized he was in trouble it was too late.

Had the same situation where I live a couple years ago.. Two 18 year olds with hopes of becoming SEALS were doing a breathing drill in the city pool. Both died.

There seems to be a growing consensus that if you already know how to swim, shallow water blackouts caused by holding your breath repeatedly are the #1 cause of drownings in pools.

That's true, but the fact that it was two of them at once makes it look like it wasn't your standard "Hey Joe, how far can you swim underwater." Terrible story no matter what.

We had a similar occurrence but fortunately one of my fellow lap swimmers noticed the unconscious young man and saved the day. We now have mandatory life guard breaks so that they can pay better attention. The signs prohibiting "prolonged underwater breath holding" were already in place.

Sad story in OP.

Shallow water blackout???? Usually very experienced swimmers.

I live in a big city so given the large population, you do see an inordinate amount of news stories about local servicemen dying in training accidents. And it does seem like most of them are special forces. This guy was from around here and the story make the local papers. It sounded like he was very experienced, having been a SEAL since 2007 and served several years in the Marines before that.

Then the Army needs to work on their swim training. Small nit, it does matter to some...Special Forces refers to the Army (more specifically, Green Berets). Navy SEALs are not Army.

Edit : Not sure why I wrote Delta originally...was thinking Green Berets all along. Guess I need to do a better job of reading what I preach.

Very sad news indeed. Excellent description of shallow water blackout here:

http://scuba-doc.com/latenthypoxia.html

Sorry.

Based on my casual reading of the local papers, it seems to me that flying in helicopters, especially at night, and then parachute jumping out rank water as a deadly danger but in any event, whatever branch of the service we're talking about, these guys live a very dangerous life, even when not getting shot at.

endofempire wrote:

There seems to be a growing consensus that if you already know how to swim, shallow water blackouts caused by holding your breath repeatedly are the #1 cause of drownings in pools.

A shallow water blackout is not caused by holding your breath repeatedly. As a freediver I have seen a lot of my friends blackout. Its not really a big deal. We are trained how to handle it and its not really hard or technical. Hypoxic training can have a big upside, but if not done correctly it may kill you. Any type of hyperventilation before breath holding is a death wish unless you have proper training and have a dive/swim buddy.


Here is a good place to start
http://shallowwaterblackoutprevention.org/about-swb/


Here is what a black out looks like.
https://youtu.be/dKGTe4sQ9ew?t=2m18s


Notice how many people are there to help. Also notice how everyone stays calm and laughs about it after. A black out should not be a big deal if you are training right. If this guy was doing this on his own he would have been dead, but with some people that know what they are doing it ends up being kinda funny.

no

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Formerly TriBrad02

I edited. Not sure why I typed something different than what I was thinking all along.

Darwin says hello

;-)

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Formerly TriBrad02

One of the early tests they have to pass is a 50m underwater swim, no pushing off the walls.

Is this swimming breaststroke UW, or kicking with fins, or??? Also, are they not at least allowed to push off the wall initially, assuming the test is in a 50-m pool??? Just curious as it seems a lot of their swimming is with the long dive fins.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

No initial wall push. You can swim underwater however you please. No fins, etc.

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Formerly TriBrad02

jump in, flip one time, breaststroke down, push off, and back. It's easy but hyped up a lot, no fins. The SCUBA drills are much harder from a hypoxia standpoint, really hard.

I see, OK, thanks for the info.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."