Defensive Swimming in Swift Water
Learn Safety Strategies for Travel in Rapid Currents
Knowing basic defensive swimming skills will help reduce injury and improve boater safety when paddlers are inadvertently swept into swift water.
Paddlers should know some basic strategies for swimming in swift water. Accidents happen and paddlers can expect to be thrown in the water at some point in their career. Defensive swimming is a basic safety skill that can be mastered by any paddler. Preparation and practice will improve your boating safety skills.
Safety Equipment - Always Wear a Personal Flotation Device (PFD). Wearing a PFD provides a person swept into fast moving water time to adequately respond to the emergency. Once the head is underwater and the gasping reflex begins, rational decision-making disappears. Purchase a rope throw bag and practice using it. Once you learn how to use one, a line can quickly be placed to a person in the water. This is one of the safest methods available to implement a water related rescue. Always be prepared to throw a line and never attach it to the rescuer. Paddlers operating in swift water should seriously consider wearing head protection. One bounce off a rock will reinforce the need for a good helmet.
Get Behind the Boat – If thrown in the water, stay with your boat and remain on top of it or upstream from it. If staying with the boat means traveling into a dangerous situation or interferes with rescue attempts, abandon it.
Assume the Position - While being swept along in a swift current, swimmers should float on their back with the feet pointing downstream. The knees should be bend and heels placed slightly lower than the buttocks. Never put your feet down while swimming in a fast moving river. Injuries and deaths occur each year for violating this rule. Feet can be entrapped or vertically pinned in rock cracks, between rocks and under debris. Do not put your feet down until you reach a safe eddy or rescuers have swung you to shore on a thrown line.
Fending Off Obstacles - Use your legs and arms to fend off rocks. As you contact rocks in the river, a swimmer in the correct position can flatten out to slide over flat rocks and use the feet to fend off larger ones. Hands and arms are used to reposition the swimmer after contact with a rock and get the feet pointing downstream again.
Lunge Up Into Strainers - Strainers are things like logs, brush or tree branches lying across the river that allow water to pass, but hold back solid objects. A different strategy is required when being swept into a strainer. Change to a swimming position and aggressively swim at a right angle to the current until past the danger and return to floating on your back. If it is apparent you will not clear the strainer, swim aggressively towards it, building momentum and try to pull or lunge over the obstruction. Strainers pose a deadly risk to swimmers in swift water.
Practice Self-Rescue Skills - Swim for the shore using a ferry angle of 45 degrees to the river current. If someone throws you a rope bag, grab for the line and not the bag. Learning aggressive swim techniques with a qualified instructor will greatly improve your self-rescue abilities.
Training - Take a swift water rescue class or river safety clinic were a qualified instructor can practice defensive swimming with you and demonstrate were aggressive swimming techniques are required.
Review your gear list prior to each trip. It will change as your experience increases and conditions change.
