eli5 why are the chances of dying high when you fall into the ocean?

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2 American Navy Seals are declared deceased today after one fell into the Gulf of Aden and the second one jumped in in an attempt to rescue.

I live in a landlocked country. Never really experienced oceans or the water.

The 2 seals fell during the night time. Pitch black. But couldn’t they just yell and the other members could immediately shine a flashlight on them? I know I am missing something here.

Why are chances of surviving very slim when you fall into the ocean? I would assume you can still swim. Is the main cause of death that you will be drifted away by the ocean waves and cannot be located?

Would chances of survival significantly increase if you fell into the ocean during daytime? Surely even with the naked eye you can still see the victim before they are carried off by ocean waves?

Thank you.

In: Planetary Science

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

When you fall into the ocean wearing body armor, helmet, night vision, radio, with a rifle and magazines, and possibly breaching equipment you’ll drown really fast. A regular life vest may be to cumbersome to wear so they probably didn’t have that. An expanding life vest of some sort seems like an obvious choice but it’s clear they weren’t wearing that either for some reason not obvious to me.

Edit: Actually now that I think of it, supposedly one SEAL hit his head after falling off of the boarding ladder and then fell into the water, presumably unconscious. Another SEAL then dove in after him to try save him. Perhaps they were wearing a expandable life vest of some sort that requires manual activation and one was unconscious and the other was trying to save his comrade who was sinking fast in his equipment so neither of them inflated their vests.

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