Forssa students practise open-water survival skills

Eighth-graders in the Forssa region are practising swimming and rescue skills in open water, including how to jump into the water from the deck of a passenger ferry, Yle reports. The training involves 16 groups from five municipalities.

The exercises are based on national recommendations that came into force last autumn and broadened the definition of swimming ability. In addition to swimming, students are expected to know how to swim in clothes and act safely in open water.

At Linikkalanlampi pond in Forssa, the water temperature is 17 to 18 degrees Celsius. Many of the students have been swimming while wearing clothes, creating more challenging conditions that are closer to a real emergency.

Swimming instructor Liisa Ojala tells students to hold hands and raise their knees into the centre of the circle. A tight group is easier for a helicopter to spot, she explains.

The open-water and survival exercises are part of a broader effort to develop school swimming in the Forssa region. All eighth-graders in the area have practised survival skills in local lakes and ponds in recent weeks.

Most of the training has been held outdoors because renovations at Forssa’s Vesihelmi swimming centre have lasted longer than expected. The programme was launched after the municipalities jointly applied for project funding, Ojala says.

Training for cold-water emergencies

The organisers are also concerned about children’s declining swimming skills. Ojala says drowning statistics from the previous summer included many underage children.

“What is new is that, alongside swimming ability, other skills are also important, such as swimming in clothes and operating in open water,” Ojala says.

The training lasts a couple of lessons, but students spend only a short time in the water. Many of the exercises are familiar from swimming-pool lessons in the fourth and fifth grades.

“The most important thing in cold water is to breathe calmly,” says swimming instructor Jenny Nyström.

Students practise swimming with life jackets, towing a partner by holding on to the jacket, and using the HELP position, or Heat Escape Lessening Position, in which they pull their legs close to their chests. They also practise floating together in a circle and swimming in a line.

Swimming in a group can be safer in dark, rough water, Ojala tells the students. A group of people is also easier to see in the water than individuals.

The students can choose whether to wear swimwear or ordinary clothes with a life jacket. Ojala says people often fall into the water from a pier or a boat while still wearing their clothes.

The final exercise is an optional evacuation jump. Students cross their arms and legs and practise jumping from the deck of a passenger ferry.

For eighth-graders Jaakko Remes and Johannes Sulonen from Humppila’s Kirkonkulma comprehensive school, the exercises were familiar from the swimming pool but took place in open water for the first time.

“Cold,” Remes says. Sulonen adds that it was ultimately quite enjoyable. The boys say breathing was somewhat more difficult outdoors and that natural water also contained litter.