Tales of Stupidity

#5: Almost drowning in a swimming pool

This incident took place sometime before the one where I was chased along Blackpool beach by a chihuahua, in the same sort of area (by that I mean it happened in Blackpool). I think it was probably just a few months before the demon-dog incident, actually.

But anyway, I was in Blackpool, at the Sandcastle (which is a big swimming place/waterpark). As I usually do before stories like these, I'll explain what the place looked like and how the event unfolded.

In the main area, there are two big swimming pools, a few meters apart. One was just a simple-ish one, with a shallow and a deep end at the back. The other was more for the kids: there was a pirate ship to play on, there was a water-cannon that only sprayed once every few minutes and then there was the water-rapids area.

The water-rapids was basically a U shape, and like the name suggests, you were pulled through the area by the water. Along the outer wall, they had two little waterfall type things, which look nice but are quite strong. Loads of kids like swimming through the gap behind them, or walking with one shoulder touching the waterfall. But this area wasn't just for kids; adults could walk through there, too.

My mum and her boyfriend were swimming in another part of the same pool whilst I went round and round in the water-rapids area for about half an hour. They weren't bothered about me, because it was such a small area and there wasn't much that could go wrong. I couldn't get eaten by a shark, or have my arm ripped off by a psycho doctor, so they assumed I'd be alright.

On about my 50th run through the rapids, I decided I'd swim under the waterfall. So I did. The first one I went under was absolutely fine. However, I decided I'd swim lower, and was basically crawling along the floor of the pool. I'll just make it clear that, when you swim underwater in a pool that's about a meter or so deep, you still can see the shape, outline and color of someone's swimming costume. What that means is that under no circumstances was I invisible to people, and other kids were doing the same thing.

Unfortunately, a fully grown man apparently couldn't, and so he stood on my shoulders and walked over me. Feeling someone or something push you down underwater is pretty scary, so I did what you shouldn't ever do when you're trying to hold your breath, and that was to open my mouth and start panicking.

This man did not notice, and he had decided that, on that particular day, he would walk as slow as possible through the rapids. Meanwhile, I was trapped under his weight and needed air.

When he finally removed his feet from my back, I immediately pushed myself up off of the floor and went to get air, only to be pushed down again by the second waterfall, which had more water flowing from it and so was stronger. I had swallowed a lot of water by that point, so when I finally got to the surface, I was coughing and couldn't breathe very well. Chlorine wasn't the best tasting substance in the world.

No lifeguards noticed this, and I returned to my mum minutes later. When I told her what had happened, she simply laughed, petted my head and asked if I wanted something to eat.

That was how she showed how much she cared.

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-F (admin)