With the summer heat in full effect, many Keizerites will turn towards pools, lakes and rivers in order to beat the heat.
What many may not think about is the impact what you wear while swimming has and how wearing colors that complement the water you are in can be potentially life-saving.
According to the Center for Disease Control, drowning is the leading cause of death for children 1 to 4 years old, and the second leading cause of unintentional death for children 5 to 14 years old.
Drowning can happen in seconds and is often silent. It can happen to anyone, any time there is access to water.
This includes pools, lakes and smaller water bodies such as bathtubs.
Despite its seriousness, mitigating drowning can be relatively simple by having children take swimming lessons as well as maintaining constant parental supervision.
But what if an adult loses sight of a child while they are swimming?
A study from Alive Solutions, a US-based nonprofit focused on water safety, investigated this issue and solutions through research of both dark-bottomed water bodies, similar to an ocean or lake environment and white-bottomed water bodies, similar to a pool environment.
They tested swimwear visibility in still as well as moving water environments.
They found that, for dark-bottom water bodies, bright and contrasting colors such as neon yellow, green and orange were preferred while neon pink and neon green were found to show up best in white-bottom water bodies.
The reason for this has to do with how the human eye works via its rods and cones.
Rods are more abundant and help us see the size, shape and brightness of an object and are used in low-light vision or scotopic vision.
Cones detect specific wavelengths corresponding to red, blue or green and are used in well-lit situations or photopic vision.
Wearing neon swimwear that corresponds to the type of water body, dark or white-bottomed, allows the human eye to more effectively spot a child in the water, even at a distance, as the contrasting colors more effectively engage the eye, making it easier to spot.
Contact Quinn Stoddard
[email protected] or 503-390-1051
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