Author: rokur

So others may live! That’s the motto of the Coast Guard’s most elite unit. Technically, they’re called aviation survival technicians, but most people know them as rescue swimmers. https://youtu.be/_foZJvMWWqE

Every year, thousands of Filipinos die by drowning, and, as investigations would reveal, many of those victims didn’t know how to swim. Some of these incidents took place during a typhoon — or in the midst of incessant monsoon rains. Others happened in maritime disasters, such as the sinking of MV Doña Paz in 1987. In certain cases, perhaps the ability to swim may not have been able to count for much. But even with the best of weather conditions — and without a precipitating disaster — many drowning incidents have happened in the country. In last year’s Holy Week…

National Team member Jordan Wilimovsky took time to visit with some aspiring national teamers on his recent visit to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. https://youtu.be/gbI4xVVwyFc

How do you train for swimming in open water while dragging a tree? Get a POV look at Ross Edgley’s insane strength training workout as he helps get our poor cameraman in shape. If you’re into fitness videos, this is the one you need. https://youtu.be/QflOlZDvsEU

Footage of an interview with Team England swimmer (and Olympic gold-medallist) Adam Peaty ahead of the Commonwealth Games. Also includes cutaways. https://youtu.be/k0JkWLCmstY

How Meditation improves my life. https://youtu.be/Z2FGrKE8vnA

A no-cost, day-use permit could be required for people who want to take a dip in the increasingly popular Blue Hole swimming area in this western Ulster County town, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said Thursday. The system, if instituted, would mandate that visitors obtain a permit before using Blue Hole — part of the Rondout Creek in the Sundown Wild Forest area of the Catskill Park — on weekends and holidays from May 15 to Oct. 15 each year. Up to 40 permits would be issued per day, and each permit would allow entry by up to six…

The Potomac River is healthier than it’s been in decades, according to an annual state-of-the-river report that notes steady improvements across a range of environmental indicators, from water quality to wildlife growth to recreational uses. The river report card, issued Tuesday by the Potomac Conservancy, awarded the waterway its first B, a grade based on declining pollution levels, the return of bald eagles and other native species, and the expansion of protected forests up and down a watershed stretching across more than 14,000 square miles. It was the advocacy group’s highest rating in its 10 years of monitoring river conditions, up…

Denver native Amy Van Dyken’s life after an ATV crash that left her paralyzed from the waist down in 2014 will be documented in an HBO special that airs Tuesday night. Van Dyken is a former Cherry Creek High School and Colorado State swimmer who won six career Olympic gold medals before her retirement from the sport in 2010. About four years later, Van Dyken hit a curb while riding an ATV near her Arizona home, tumbled down an embankment and almost completely severed her spinal cord. But with the help of Greg Roskopf, an Englewood-based muscle function specialist, Van…

Scientists now have the dirt on the rubber ducky: Those cute yellow bath-time toys are — as some parents have long suspected — a haven for nasty bugs. Swiss and American researchers counted the microbes swimming inside the toys and say the murky liquid released when ducks were squeezed contained “potentially pathogenic bacteria” in four out of the five toys studied. The bacteria found included Legionella and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that is “often implicated in hospital-acquired infections,” the authors said in a statement. The study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, ETH Zurich and the…