Drowning: A Global Challenge We Can Prevent
Every year, more than 300,000 people lose their lives to drowning worldwide – that's roughly 30 people every hour, and nearly a quarter of them are children under five. Globally, drowning is also among the ten leading causes of death for children aged 5–14. Despite these alarming numbers, drowning remains one of the most overlooked issues in public health. The encouraging fact: most drowning incidents can be prevented through education, preparation, and the right safety measures.
On July 25, the world marks World Drowning Prevention Day. This year's theme, "Unite to Turn the Tide," carries the WHO's Global Strategy for Drowning Prevention: cut drowning deaths by 35% by 2035. Reaching it starts with all of us.
At RESTUBE, we work to raise awareness, share knowledge, and help build a culture where everyone takes responsibility for water safety, whether you're swimming in a lake, sailing offshore, or spending a day at the beach. Real safety starts long before an emergency ever happens.
One of the most important concepts supporting this mission is the Drowning Chain of Survival – an internationally recognized framework that outlines the essential actions to prevent drowning and respond effectively when emergencies happen.
What Is the Drowning Chain of Survival?
Scientific research into drowning long focused mainly on resuscitation after rescue. Modern findings show the decisive factor for survival lies much earlier: most drowning incidents unfold as a progressive process that can be interrupted at many points, and every intervention – from prevention to early recognition to flotation – significantly reduces the risk of cardiac arrest. Based on this insight, an international group of experts led by Brazilian emergency physician and water-rescue researcher David Szpilman developed the Drowning Chain of Survival in 2014, today recognized internationally as a leading concept in water rescue.
The chain describes five progressive actions to interrupt the process of drowning as early as possible. It starts long before an emergency occurs, not with the rescue itself.
The five links in the chain are:
- Prevent: reduce risk before entering the water
- Recognize: spot the signs of drowning distress early and call for help
- Provide flotation: help without becoming a second victim
- Remove from the water: get the person out safely
- Resuscitate if needed: start CPR and seek medical help
Prevention Starts Before You Enter the Water
Most drowning incidents never happen because of one single mistake. Instead, they are often the result of several preventable risk factors coming together.
The first step is to actively reduce these risks before entering the water:
- Supervise children closely and stay within arm´s reach of non-swimmers
- Choose locations where trained lifeguards are present whenever possible
- Secure private pools and spas with four-sided fencing
- Wear appropriate lifejackets on boats and watercraft
- Learn to swim and keep building your water competency
These basics apply to everyone. But if your world is more open water than swimming pool – long swims, SUP tours, sailing, triathlon – the risks shift too: currents, cold water, fatigue over long distances, and simply being seen when you're far from shore.
Carrying or wearing an emergency flotation device adds another important layer of safety. While no device replaces responsible behaviour, immediate access to buoyancy can significantly extend survival time during an unexpected emergency.
How RESTUBE helps:
RESTUBE was designed precisely for those unexpected moments when circumstances change within seconds. Because the system is lightweight, compact and comfortable to wear, it can accompany swimmers, paddlers, sailors, divers, anglers and open water athletes without restricting movement. If needed, pulling the trigger inflates the buoy within seconds, providing immediate buoyancy and increasing visibility in the water.
Unlike traditional lifejackets, RESTUBE is unobtrusive enough that many people are willing to wear it throughout their activities. This helps close an important gap between recognising risk and actually carrying flotation. The easier safety becomes, the more likely people are to use it.
Recognize the Signs and Call for Help
Drowning rarely looks the way it does in movies. Victims often can´t wave or call lout. Their bodies are focused entirely on keeping their airway above the surface, leaving no energy for anything else. The mouth barely stays above the water long enough to gasp for air, and arms instinctively press down and out to the sides, pushing the body up rather than waving.
- Recognise early drowning victim’s distress signs. Victims may not wave or call for help
- Tell someone to call for help while staying on-scene to provide assistance
- Watch where the victim is in the water, or ask a bystander to keep constant watch
How RESTUBE Helps
The long, high-visibility buoy makes it easy to draw attention to someone in distress. Wave it, or use the built-in whistle on models like ACTIVE and EXTREME to signal for help.
Provide Flotation Before Attempting a Rescue
The single biggest risk to a would-be rescuer is entering the water without flotation. This is how bystanders can become a second victim.
- Stay out of the water yourself whenever possible
- Throw or reach something that floats to the person in distress
- If you're the one in difficulty, don't panic — stay with any flotation you have, signal for help as soon as possible, and float
How RESTUBE Helps
The RESTUBE Safety Buoy lets you provide first help with flotation to others in need. If you're already in the water yourself, you can hand your RESTUBE over to the person who needs it more. If you're outside the water, the water-activated RESTUBE AUTOMATIC 75 can be thrown directly to the person in distress, inflating automatically on contact with water.
Remove the Person From the Water Safely
Getting someone out of the water is often more dangerous than getting to them. The safest rescue is the one where you never have to enter the water at all.
- Give directions so the person can self-rescue if they're able to
- Try to remove them without entering the water yourself – reaching aids, ropes, or extended objects come first
- Only enter the water and swim to the person if it's safe to do so, and only with a flotation device
How RESTUBE Helps
Because the buoy trails behind you on its leash instead of adding drag, you can swim quickly and even dive through waves while towing it – helping you reach the person faster and get both of you out of the water sooner.
Resuscitate If Needed
If the person isn´t breathing, every second counts:
- Start CPR (compressions and ventilations) immediately
- Use an AED and oxygen as soon as one is available
- If the person is breathing, stay with them until help arrives
- Seek medical care or go to a hospital if any symptoms are present – and always for anyone who needed resuscitation, even if they seem to recover (Szpilman et al., 2014)
How RESTUBE Helps
If an in-water rescue requires support before the person can be brought to shore, flotation from a RESTUBE buoy can help keep both rescuer and victim safely at the surface until help arrives. Some RESTUBE Safety Buoy models also include a small pocket for storing a mouth-to-mouth mask. If you're trained and in-water resuscitation needs to happen urgently, the Safety Buoy can support by providing flotation while you work.
Water Safety Is a Shared Responsibility
Preventing drowning is not the responsibility of lifeguards alone. Parents, friends, athletes, event organisers, water sports companies and every individual around the water all play an important role. And it works: the global drowning rate has fallen by 38% since 2000. Collective action saves lives and there´s still more we can do.
The Drowning Chain of Survival reminds us that saving lives starts with awareness, preparation and good decisions long before an emergency unfolds.
At RESTUBE, we believe that combining education with practical safety solutions can make water activities safer for everyone. Every conversation about water safety, every swimming lesson, every supervised child, every worn flotation device and every informed decision contributes to reducing drowning worldwide.
Together, we can make drowning prevention visible – and help ensure that more people return safely from every adventure on the water.
