Swimming Safety, help and safety signs, distress signals, is waving enough?

How do you signal that you need help when swimming? Out at sea, ships have recognized distress signals. Flying flags upside down.

Pool Problems & Signals
How would you signal you were in trouble, when swimming? In a pool.

When you are pushing down on the bottom of the pool, coming up for air but can't get back to the side.

Sea Saftey and Signals
At sea? When you drift out on an inflatable.

Waving
Is there a sign? A sign you can make with your hands?

Waving is not enough. I remember the poem, not waving but drowning. Sylvia plath. Steve Smith. It was a metaphor. But very visual.

It should be shown on the safety boards.

Some  pools have a sign for instruction for giving resuscitationl .
Plus the numbers to call for help.
Hotel reception.
Emergency services - ambulance.

Useful Websites On Swimming and Safety
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_stroke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_signal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiopulmonary_resuscitation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_swimming

Author
Angela Lansbury

More About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a travel writer and photographer and teacher of English A level and English as a foreign language.

Please come to a Toastmasters International Club where the English clubs have a language evaluator or grammarian.  We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and other language clubs based in Singapore and many more online around the world which because of Covid-19 are now meeting online.

I am President of Braddell Heights Advanced, meeting every Wednesday, on zoom the first Wednesday of the month but the other Wednesdays are workshops on app 

Incoming president Faith from July 1st 2020 could change dates and platforms so please contact the club.

Latest is only two meetings each month.

learncool.sg

Or quicker to type and easier to remember: 

 tinyurl.com/BHACOOL

Useful Websites

https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/

Other amusing posts by Angela

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reduplicated_place_names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reduplicated_Australian_place_names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reduplicated_New_Zealand_place_names

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogs
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-to-say-thank-you-in-several.html
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/05/introducing-yourself-in-english-spanish.html
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/01/second-set-of-portuguese-words.html Please share links to your favourite posts
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
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How Hospitals Can Improve - with food, drink, toilets and phone numbers

Hospitals are wonderful, caring people and amazing facilities. UK hospitals are cosy and warm. Singapore hospitals are refreshingly cool.

A doctor in Singapore sent me to a hospital with a covering letter. I was very pleased with the service. (They take your credit card details before anything else. Paying in advance is good. No worry about the bill at the end.)

But there is always room for upgrading and improvement.

1 TOILETS AND WATER ON ARRIVAL BEFORE BED
Get patients toilets and water before putting them into beds. This keeps them happy and alert and co-operative and less stressed . it also saves staff having to bring bedpans.

Give them water - and toilet - on arrival. A human being is like a pipe. Water goes in one end and out the other.

This applies to main wards and also A and E. (Accident and Emergency.)

2 POINT OUT BIDETS IN TOILETS
In National University Hospital I was escorted to the toilet and a nurse pulled the curtain around the toilet.

Later, I asked to go to the hospital toilet just before leaving. Having fallen after being giddy first thing in the morning, I didn't want to risk collapsing in a public toilet on a railway station. I then discovered, with the curtain pulled back revealing the poster on the wall, that the hospital toilet had a built in bidet jet like the toilets in five-star hotels (the Mandarin Oriental hotel next to the Twin Towers in KL, Malaysia, had them in the ground floor ladies).
It would have been helpful if the staff had pointed out this facility earlier.

Selfie of me in the hospital bed in A and E at National University Hospital, Singapore.

3 SERVE A SNACK AND DRINK OF WATER AT TIMED INTERVALS FROM ARRIVAL
Check whether the patient has eaten. I had breakfast but no elevenses or lunch in case I needed an anaesthetic or other procedure which required an empty stomach.
Serve a snack or check they have eaten and drunk water within two hours of admission - unless they are likely to need a procedure which prevents this.
I was given a jam sandwich. I though fruit might have been better. Maybe a banana instead of as well.

4 ALLOCATE A LIAISON PERSON
Hospitals see to have staff whose job is specific, such as measuring blood, or taking a patient's temperature. The person actually in charge, the boss, is nowhere to be seen. Nobody seems in charge of whether you have had a drink, or food, or need to go to the toilet or tell your family how long you will be in the hospital.

5 CHECK HOSPITAL PHONE NUMBER IS IN PATIENT'S PHONE
With the help of the 'geriatric nurse' - gee, thanks, I am now geriatric, who gave me my appointment card with a phone number on it, (guaranteed to go missing when I needed it) I was able to put all the hospital numbers in my phone.
The nurse also suggested adding the ambulance number. I'd noticed that unlike the UK where 999 was once number for all services, the ambulance number in Singapore is 995. If you are confused you might not think of it. If somebody from another country is with you they might not think of it. It's so handy to have the number in your phone contacts list under the word ambulance.

6 BUDDY SYSTEM
I thought I read somewhere about neighbours with similar conditions and no family around having a buddy phone call system. They just check in once a day to see the other person is alive and well.
Even if somebody is at home when you are released from hospital and the month after, there might be a time when you are on your own for several hours or days or weeks.

National University Hospital is a teaching hospital. It has sections dealing with cancer, children, dentistry, and women.
The main entrance/exit by the MRT station faces restful, soothing trees.

National University Hospital is right next to Kent Ridge MRT (railway station on the Circle line).
Useful Websites / Information
National University Hospital
5 Lower Kent Ridge Road
Singapore 119074
Tel: (65) 6779 5555.
website: www.nuh.com.sg

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.