One of the primary lifesaving and preserving things that need to be on a boat is the life jacket. We can all agree to that. However, using a life jacket does not put you out of harm’s way 100%.
In a previous post of ours, we discussed about the top primary boating accidents and what are the statistics in matters of injuries and casualties. We also presented the benefits of staying connected on water and how safety comes first when discussing about boating and sailing.
Many of the accidents we talked about can be prevented by wearing a life jacket, but there are situations when even wearing a life jacket is not enough.
This may come in as a shock, given the fact that 70% of the drowning victims during water activities, during the past decade, have not been wearing life vests.
However, there are situations when a life jacket cannot protect you. According to lifevesthub.com, there are three worst possible situations that can happen on water when wearing a life jacket.
The three worst possible scenarios are:
- Mouth Immersion
- Unconsciousness
- Impairment
Mouth Immersion
This happens when both the nose and the mouth are under water. This can occur when wearing a life jacket since a lot of water hitting at the same time can become a powerful force. Given the fact that life jackets have their limits of buoyancy, a person found in exceptionally rough waters can sub come to mouth immersion even when wearing one.
This happens due to the constant barrage of waves, currents, and the undertow can still pull you under and typically only happens if the person is wearing a life jacket that is not sufficiently rated for the situation.
Unconsciousness
This one is kind of self-explanatory! One of the worst things that can happen to you is to be unconscious in the water, even when wearing a life jacket.
Being unconscious could prevent you from keeping your head above water so the situation could get bad quickly.
Impairment
This is one of the most dangerous situations you can be in, even when wearing a life jacket.
Impairment can be either voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary impairment occurs when a person is not sober and cannot move correctly. In this case the life-threatening danger is real even when wearing a life jacket.
Involuntary impairment occurs when a person is injured during the event that threw you the into the water in the first place, though you may not be unconscious. This leads once again to the person not being able to properly move so the danger gets real.
These are the worst scenarios that could lead to accidents even when wearing a life jacket. This is why our team at IQNautics believes in safety coming first every time we go sailing. To be honest, this is one of the strong reasons why we developed our free app.
