Seems like you can float on your back forever, without really getting tired. When people drown in lakes or oceans, why can’t they just float until someone rescues them? I get it if you’re wearing clothes heavy with water, but if you were already swimming, or at least dressed for it…?
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There’s several reasons:
Any water that is not at least as warm your own body temperature will over time cool you down so you’ll experience hypothermia.
At the same time, you’ll start cramping up and also getting tired.
Because it’s just a little harder to breathe when your chest isn’t at surface level, you’ll usually kick your feet every now and then to come up a little to make it easier to breathe which contributes to you getting tired.
Also, when you’re in the ocean, the waves are a factor because they can easily prevent you from breathing properly. The animals of the ocean are another topic altogether.
One more problem is that people who realise that they’re having a problem in open water don’t usually stay calm and collected but panic, use up their energy and try to fight the water.
Last but not least it’s hard to keep your head in a position that makes breathing easy enough for hours or even days on end.
So although it’s quite possible to float for a LONG time given the right circumstances, it’s not that easy.
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Sure if the water is pretty calm, it is possible to float with little effort. There are other problems though
a) Hypothermia. Humans lose heat fairly quickly in water.
b) Thirst. Can’t drink sea water. Humans don’t survive very long (few days to a week at most) without water. And seawater will dehydrate the body.
c) Most open bodies of water aren’t very calm. So it will take a bit of energy to remain floating. While it takes a fair bit to die from lack of food, humans can run out of energy fairly quickly.
d) Exposure to the sun. Also a problem. Mild sunburns might be not more than a nuisance. But major problems like infections etc can and will occur with major sun burns. Sun exposure also leads to heatstroke etc.
Ultimately, without protection from the sun, relatively calm seas, the dehydrating effects of sea water, a source of fresh water to drink, food and protection from the cold as well, floating even for even a day without assistance is difficult.
In lifeguard training they taught us that almost all people that drown haven’t planned on being in the water, and mostly will be in a state of panic. They defined panic as the inability to think clearly, so it’s not something they could reason their way out of. We even practiced things like shouting to people panicking in shallow water to stand up.
Edit: I took lifeguard training about 30 years ago, so this could be out of date.
Because while it seems easy, its not as easy as just lying down. You will need to constantly exert at list a bit of force to keep yourself in the correct position. You can easily test this by trying to float for a few hours. It will get tiring pretty fast.
Combine that with hypothermia due to water constantly sapping away your body heat, and you will get exhausted pretty fast.
If you don’t have a life jacket and are able to stay calm without trying to swim then ideally as long as you can breathe and inflate your lungs you can float, but you can’t stay awake forever. There are more ways to die in open water than just drowning. Sun exposure, hypothermia, dehydration. Maybe a shark eats you or maybe your skin just rots from being in the water so long.
Couple of things.
First, **not everyone can actually float**. That is, nearly everyone can float when their lungs are fully inflated, but that’s not necessarily very helpful as this takes effort and is hard to keep up (and you’ll still sink every time you breathe out). The ability to float *without* inflating your lungs depends on your body composition, and especially on how much muscle and fat you have. Fat floats as it is less dense, whereas muscle is more dense and sinks. [This study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/617991) tested 98 men and found that, without inflating their lungs, only 69% of them could float in sea water, and **only 7%** could float in fresh water.
Second, passively floating may not be enough to keep your head above the water. A wave could overturn you or land on top of you. Passively floating usually doesn’t keep your head very high above the waterline so it doesn’t take much to push you under.
Third, a big factor in many drownings is hypothermia. You might be able to stay afloat but that’s no help if you freeze to death, and if you keep moving you might actually slow that process down some.
I almost drowned once in a lagoon with FAIRLY calm water. I got carried away by the current to an awkward location / position so I had quite a lot to swim back to the shore without knowing if I’m against the current or not since I’m nowhere near a good swimmer.
After I managed to control my panic I would swim in bursts then lay on my back to rest.
While this kind of worked and it did help a few things happened:
1. You still need to put in some effort to float on your back as your legs usually sink. While being less effort than swimming, it’s still considerable effort that will drain you after a while.
2. Even small waves will wash over your face and you can’t really time your breathing since you can’t see anywhere except upwards.
3. A short burst of swimming was easily negated by the waves as I would be spun around and usually end up in another direction. This disoriented me every time and I had to expend more energy turning, looking around and then swimming again towards the shore.
I could maybe see this working for longer in really really calm waters but it’s probably even more problematic in fresh water, more so than salt water.
Not everyone actually knows how to float.
It’s easier to float in the ocean vs a lake.
Often times you are also injured, and in a mental state of panic.
Lastly, floating requires a small amount of movement to maintain; breathing is often more difficult so you’ll generally adjust a bit and reset as you need to manage the air in your lungs to keep you balanced (when you exhale you’ll sink a bit, when you inhale you’ll float a bit).
Okay, am I weird? I can’t float on my back, at all. I take a deep breath and lay back, relax, and just sink. Are some people just less boyant? It’s a running joke with my friends that I’m a terrible swimmer but I’m starting to think they have an advantage over me lol
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