Navy SEAL explains how to survive if you are being drowned
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: Facebook/US Navy
A former Navy SEAL has shared his tricks of the trade with civilians who might need them one day.
SEALs are an elite specialized group serving within the Navy and go through extremely gruelling training before being sent out into the field.
With their extensive training in mind, after leaving the SEALs in January 2015, Clint Emerson penned a detailed book filled with potentially lifesaving hacks.
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His book, 100 Deadly Skills, went on to be a New York Times bestseller.
It was published the same year as Emerson's retirement.
In his critically acclaimed novel, Emerson shared what to do if you ever find yourself in a situation where someone has tried to drown you.
And after working in special ops for a staggering 20 years, it's safe to say he knows what he's talking about.
The excerpt of his 2015 book begins on a bleak note, with Emerson explaining that if someone is captured in a hostile territory 'the odds of survival are low'.
Instead of being taken to trial, it's not uncommon for operatives to be made to 'disappear' - which is why they practice escaping while wearing undefeatable restraints on hands and feet, both in water and on land, in their training.
"The key to survival is breath control," Emerson writes, as per Business Insider. "With the lungs full of air, the human body is buoyant — so deep breaths and quick exhales are key."
He continues: "Buoyancy in freshwater is more challenging but still achievable. Panicking, which can lead to hyperventilation, is the number-one enemy to survival."
As I'm sure you'd imagine, restraints on your wrists and ankles can make breathing more difficult if you're in water, so Emerson says it's important to reposition yourself.
"When facing down, whether floating in place or using a backward kicking motion to swim to shore, the operative should arch his back in order to raise his head above water," the military veteran says.
"In rough seas, this may not give him enough clearance to get his head out of water. Instead, a full body rotation will allow him to take a deep breath and then continue traveling forward."
A diagram in the book also suggests a person exhale and sink to the bottom of the body of water they're in (if possible), crouch, and push themselves back up to the service to get air.
Those will brilliant core strength might also benefit from rotating from their back after inhaling, to being stomach-down in the water to exhale.
While this is good to know, here's hoping we never actually need to use these techniques!
100 Deadly Skills is available to purchase on Amazon.