Dangers
Rip currents are a source of danger for people in ocean and lake surf. They can be extremely dangerous, dragging swimmers away from the beach. Death by drowning comes following exhaustion while fighting the river or ocean current.
Although a rare event, rip currents can be deadly for non-swimmers as well: a person standing waist deep in water can be dragged into deeper waters, where they can drown if they are unable to swim and are not wearing a flotation device. Varying topography makes some beaches more likely to have rip currents; a few are notorious.
Rip currents cause more than 100 deaths annually in the United States. Rip currents cause 80% of rescues needed by beach lifeguards.
Read more about this topic: Rip Current
Famous quotes containing the word dangers:
“We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Fearlessness is a more than ordinary strength of mind, which raises the soul above the troubles, disorders, and emotions which the prospect of great dangers are used to produce. And by this inward strength it is that heroes preserve themselves in a calm and quiet state, and enjoy a presence of mind and the free use of their reason in the midst of those terrible accidents that amaze and confound other people.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)