Attention Young: Swimming well is not enough not to drown. Here’s why

2025 has been the year with the most drowning deaths since 2017. Until the best swimmer in the world can drown-especially in rivers, where over-confidence is too often fatal.

When summer arrives, the cases of drowning shoot in Portugal. This year does not escape the rule and there are cases of drowning virtually every week.

Between 2020 and 2023, More than 50 children and young people died By drowning in the country, according to data from the Association for the Promotion of Child Security (APSI).

A Most deaths happen in the age group between 15 and 19 years old. 19 of these children were up to 4 years old, four between 5 and 9, eight teenagers between 10 and 14 years and 24 were between 15 and 19 years old.

The trend of falling in the number of drowning deaths has reversed in recent years and This has been the worst year since 2017.

By 2025, more than 50 drowned people have died in Portugal. Most victims are men, aged between 25 and 29 years. The vast majority of deaths are divided between the river and the sea.

All deadly situations this year happened in unveiled placesan increasingly worrying on Portuguese beaches.

There is something that people have to find out: even the best swimmer in the world can drown. Experts explain why.

Because knowing how to swim does not guarantee security

Learning to swim is essential, especially in countries where many people live near the sea or rivers where they can do so. But that is not enough.

While the sea has the waves, chains and hardworks always in your favor, Rio is in many more dangerous scenarioswith continuous currents that require swimming against the current, colder waters that reduce muscle effectiveness, cloudy water that affects visibility and more irregular beds.

A population looks at a “calm” river, underestimates it and ventures in it. Excessive confidence is fatal when people think it is easier to swim even further into rivers, and then they feel too tired to return to the margin.

It happened this month in Gondomar, when another young man lost his life while trying to cross the Douro River – a common joke in Valbom, where at the end of May a under 17 he had died after jumping to the Douro waters.

In addition, river water is less dense than that of the sea, which makes the act of floating much more difficult.

Swimming instruction is not properly preparing young people for real risk situations in natural environments, a recent study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) at Taylor & Francis.

The investigation evaluated the difference between swimming in heated pools and in natural environments such as lakes. The results show that although about 80% of tested (Norwegian) students were considered competent swimmers in a pool, Only 30% They kept this performance in a lake.

Researchers argue that instruction should include more than just basic technical skills. It is also necessary to develop attitudes and knowledge about water safety. They propose that practice in pools is more representative of natural environments and underline the importance of outdoor practice.