00:00Float to Survive is an initiative to give a simple message to people who are struggling in deep water.
00:07They have to resist their natural instinct to thrash around and waste energy and simply float.
00:15By floating you conserve your energy and that maximises your chance of survival.
00:21The message of Float to Survive is important because it's an in-water message.
00:25What do you do when you get into trouble?
00:27It's not just something you think about when you're out of the water.
00:30So when you're in trouble, stop swimming and float.
00:35But float isn't like your scared cat X float.
00:40It's an active thing that you can help yourself to survive.
00:44People drown between the flags also.
00:47And especially when there's surf during summer like on the Australian Day weekend
00:53when we get large sets of waves and they get washed off the sandbank where the flags are into a deep channel.
01:00And it's most important that they don't freak out and struggle.
01:05They just float, put their hand up and either a surfer or a board rider or the lifeguard on duty
01:14if they're swimming between the flags will come and get them.
01:17The worst thing they can do is to try and swim back against the rip or struggle.
01:23That just accelerates the drowning process.
01:26So even someone who's good at swimming like me can drown.
01:30I can have a dizzy spell, I can inhale some water and panic.
01:40So you need to know where your buoyancy is, your built in buoyancy device
01:47and use that and try to remain calm until you get washed back into shore or someone comes and rescues you.
01:54So it gives you time and it gives you the ability to control the situation in the moment.
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