Preventing drownings in submerged vehicles
Implementation of technical solutions and greater awareness are both needed, Gordon Giesbrecht says.
The incident that claimed the lives of four Royal Military College cadets in Kingston after their vehicle plunged into Lake Ontario last month was nothing short of tragic. Four young men with their lives and careers ahead of them: Jack Hogarth, Andrei Honciu, Broden Murphy and Andres Salek.
Compounding the tragedy is that there exist technological solutions that could have prevented this outcome, such as automatic window-opening systems. Surprisingly, such solutions are still not mandatory, despite alarming facts about vehicle submersion.
Vehicle submersion carries one of the highest mortality rates for any type of single-vehicle accident and accounts for up to 10 per cent of all drownings, because occupants have at most one minute to exit the vehicle.
Unfortunately, the risk to drivers and passengers has been largely ignored by vehicle manufacturers and regulators alike. Little is being done to increase occupant safety in submersion events because, historically, the number of fatalities is low when compared to other fatal crash types. But one death is one too many.
Modern vehicles actually have certain features that increase risks to occupants in submersion scenarios, such as laminated and other shatter-resistant window types. Manual window-breaking tools are ineffective against them, yet many vehicles sold since 2018 are equipped with laminated side windows.
Since 2005, Operation ALIVE (Automobile submersion: Lessons In Vehicle Escape) has been studying vehicle submersion at the University of Manitoba and has conducted more than 100 human-vehicle submersions and published 10 technical papers in peer-reviewed journals. The facts are simple: shortly after impact with water, the doors can't be opened due to hydrostatic pressure, and the same will occur with the side windows after approximately 60 seconds. Therefore, occupants have at most 60 seconds to exit through the side windows, while they are still above the water line. Occupants definitely should not attempt to open the doors. To educate people on what to do, we created the acronym SWOC: Seatbelts off; Window(s) open; Out immediately; Children first.
Unfortunately, many people are still either unfamiliar with this advice or forget it due to stress during a submersion, and waste valuable seconds on the wrong actions that lead to their death. These include: doing nothing, waiting for the vehicle to fill with water to equalize the pressure; counting on surviving in an air bubble until help arrives; and placing cellphone calls for rescue. Emergency responders can't get to the submersion site in less than 60 seconds.
While SWOC should be widely taught, technology that would ensure windows are lowered immediately upon immersion detection is available now, and a passenger vehicle is only as safe as the technologies that are on board. Because every second counts, combining SWOC with on-board automatic systems would dramatically improve submersion-related fatality statistics.
I strongly recommend the integration of vehicle-escape solutions that automatically lower the side windows, which circumvents the obstacle presented by shatter-resistant glass. This should be a standard safety feature, because submersion events are rapid and allow little to no room for human error. I know this because I have conducted, or participated in, 100 submersion tests myself. Unlike many other kinds of fatal car crashes, submersion-related fatalities are due to drowning because occupants become trapped inside the sinking vehicle. On the other hand, ensuring that modern vehicles are equipped with automatic window-lowering solutions gives people a real fighting chance to save themselves.
In light of the knowledge that our evidence-based research has created, as well as the fact that relatively inexpensive technological solutions exist, there are not many excuses for why another person should lose their life or that of a loved one to vehicle submersion.
Gordon Giesbrecht operates the Laboratory for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at the University of Manitoba, where he studies human responses to exercise and work in extreme environments, including hundreds of cold water immersion studies, drowning physiology and prevention, and prevention of vehicle-submersion deaths.