Why I Laughed at the End of My Near Drowning Experience

When you’re near drowning, a lot is going through your head:

• “Why couldn’t someone have put a rest area in the middle of this goddamn lake?”
• “Where the hell is the lifeguard? Oh God, I forgot we’re swimming in the middle of nowhere!”
• “Am I going to look stupid when I die? God, please don’t make me look stupid when I die!”

But I must’ve looked pretty stupid drowning in the middle of that lake, because when I shouted “Help!” my friend laughed.

What Not to Do When You’re Near Drowning

If you’re drowning and you scream “Help!” you might as well start making plans for the afterlife. I don’t have the exact statistics, but I’m going to say 100 percent of the people who scream “Help!” — with no lifeguard and only one friend around — are screwed.

Strange enough, when I saw my friend laugh when I pleaded for “Help!” I began to think it was pretty funny too.

“He thinks I’m pretend drowning — that’s hilarious,” I thought while I continued to panic and flail about.

Then my friend and I had that moment, we made direct eye contact, and he saw I wasn’t joking. The fear in a soon-to-be-dead man’s eyes is unmistakable.

“Swim on your back,” he shouted. “You’re not going to die!”

This morbid yet informative advice worked. I switched to my back, started to calm down, and let out a big smile. I wasn’t going to die.

(If this was a Monty Python skit, this would’ve been an excellent time for me to get run over by a boat or eaten by a lake monster.)

Final Thoughts on Near Drowning

I made it back to shore and caught my breath before telling my friend what had happened.

“When I screamed ‘Help!’ and you started to laugh — I thought it was funny too,” I said.

“Wait, so you thought it was funny, that I thought it was funny, that you were pretending to die — but you were actually dying,” he responded.

“Yup.”

Death is hilarious.