A young man of 21 years has died drowning in the Grand Canal in front of the station of Venice. Nobody understood that he was dying, and help arrived too late.
“He refused the lifebuoy” the local papers have repeated endlessly, and hence its seen as a suicide.
I have seen a man drown two metres from me in a pool.
Fortunately he was saved by somebody brighter than I, and he left the pool alive, if shaken.
I was hospitalised here in Venice, for rehabilitation after a stroke, and I was in the pool for exercises.
Besides me in the deeper part of the pool was a elderly man, an immigrant like myself, I believe. While I was concentrating on my exercises, I perceived from the corner of the eye that he was totally immobile in the water. Turning I see that he’s passive in the water, head down, arms stretched out on the sides, floating totally immobile.
Fragments of various thoughts swirled around my brain, but before I was able to put two and two together, the therapist came running, jumped in the pool and pulled the man’s head out of the water.
All this happened in a few seconds, in perfect silence. Nobody said anything, and I don’t believe the others in the pool noticed anything before the therapist jumped in, dressed and all.
Only then did I understand what was happening, and what could have been the consequences.
I wouldn’t have saved that man in time. It still hurts thinking about it.
Please read: “Drowning doesn’t look like drowning” by Mario Vittone. Maybe one day you can save a life.
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