BACKGROUND No one has ever reported or investigated the number of people who have been admitted to hospital for a water related incident. The purpose of this paper is to examine, the hospital activity resulting from such incidents including to length of stay, gender, age and cause. METHODS The data was extracted from the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) for episodes with a mention of ICD 10 ...

The main form of locomotion in the lamprey (a lower vertebrate, cyclostome) is forward swimming (FS) based on periodical waves of lateral body flexion propagating from head to tail. The lamprey is also capable of backward swimming (BS). Here we describe the kinematical and electromyographic (EMG) pattern of BS, as well as the effects on this pattern exerted by different lesions of the spinal co...

The aim of the present study is to test the hypothesis that sprint swimming performance is enhanced by in-water passive recovery (IN) after sprint swimming bouts in well-trained adolescent swimmers. Using a randomized crossover study design, twelve well-trained adolescent swimmers performed two tests at the swimming pool after preliminary testing. They performed 5 bouts of 100m all-out swimming...

Ralph’s many academic and organisational achievements have been eloquently told by many and are not the subject of this personal account. Let me explain. When I first met Ralph in the mid 1990s, he struck me as a talkative, overly nice, trying-to-make-up-for-apartheid type of man. Our family later moved to Oxford, and one day Ralph and Beverley happened to pass through. Amidst the pleasantries,...

The popularity of automatic photogrammetric techniques has promoted many experiments in underwater scenarios leading to quite impressive visual results, even by non-experts. Despite these achievements, a deep understanding of camera and lens behaviors as well as optical phenomena involved in underwater operations is fundamental to better plan field campaigns and anticipate the achievable result...

Carbon dioxide is seldom used as pH reducer in swimming pools. Nevertheless it offers two interesting advantages. First, its use instead of the usual hydrochloric acid avoids the characteristic and serious accident of mixing the disinfectant with that strong acid, which forms a dangerous chlorine gas cloud and, second, it allows the facility to become slightly a depository of that greenhouse ga...

Samples from therapeutic swimming pools and mud basins were cultured for free-living amoebae. Seven strains of pathogenic Naegleria species were isolated. Although some of the strains were as virulent as Naegleria fowleri, the etiological agent of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, they were identified as Naegleria australiensis with the indirect fluorescent-antibody technique. The virulence ...

Swimming is generally considered to be a healthy leisure activity for both the young and old. Swimming is even often advised as the most appropriate sport for asthmatic children [1–3], mainly (but probably not solely) on the grounds that inhaling moist air is less conducive to triggering exercise-induced asthma [4]. However, for obvious reasons of microbiological safety, the water of public and...