How to Get Out From a Water Undercurrent When Swimming

Swimmers need to check with beach lifeguards or patrols for any safety issues before entering the water.

Professional swimmers, body boarders, and surfers understand how to avoid the dangerous water conditions -- and even they sometimes find themselves in trouble -- but casual swimmers facing ocean or lake rip currents often panic and sometimes drown as a result. The danger presented by rip currents, often incorrectly called undercurrents and undertows, requires educating swimmers and vacationers about the water condition. The National Weather Service reports that rip currents account for more than 80 percent of annual rescues, and even strong swimmers have difficulty escaping the dangerous currents. When caught in a rip current, remain calm and plan your escape by repeatedly testing the path of the water current.

Instructions

1. Locate the patterns in the water showing the approximate location of the rip currents. Look for the patterns of water agitation in calm water and identify large areas of swirling foam, trash or seaweed in the waves. This typically indicates rip current action.

2. Signal to the lifeguard or shore patrol, if available, to show you need some assistance in exiting the water. If a lifeguard isn't available, signal to any people on the shore to call for help.

3. Begin swimming parallel to any visible rip currents. If these can't be seen, try swimming toward the shoreline. If the water path feels unnaturally difficult for movement, you're still in the rip current and you need to swim away from the shore to circumvent the flow.

4. Continue to test the path of the rip current to find an open path to the shore. Adjust your swimming path further outside the current, if you feel water pressure making it difficult to swim. This path may take you further down the beach or shore, but this path allows you to swim toward the shore without interference from the rip current. Swim methodically, not frantically. Preserve your strength and don't fight the currents.

5. Continue to swim parallel to the shore and continue to test the current strength. You'll eventually find a location where the rip current is not as strong and you'll be able to swim through the water without the current pressure blocking your path to the shore.

Tips & Warnings

• The best policy is to stay onshore during periods of high or tense surf, when rip current activity is at the highest levels, even if you're a strong swimmer. If you can't swim, never enter water with wave action above your ankles. Rip currents take waders out into the water with wave action, even in waist-high water.

• Do not attempt to fight your way through the rip current to reach the shore. The current takes your strength and eventually makes it difficult, sometimes impossible, to continue swimming parallel to the currents. Contrary to popular belief, strong rip currents do not pull the swimmer down under the waves; the current action pulls waders or swimmers further away from the shoreline and tires the swimmer attempting to return to shore. This behavior creates a danger of drowning, according to the National Weather Service.

References

• National Weather Service Rip Current Safety: Rip Currents -- Break the Grip of the Rip!
• National Weather Service Rip Current Safety: Rip Current Science
• National Weather Service: Rip Current Safety
• National Weather Service: Rip Current Questions and Answers
• Ocean Watch: Here's How You Can Avoid Losing Your Life in a Riptide

Resources

• National Weather Service: Real Life Rip Current Stories