A Dartmouth College swimmer died while attempting to swim a 100 without breathing in a YMCA pool in Florida according to several news reports.
21-year old Tate Ramsden of Nashville, TN was on a vacation in Sarasota, Florida with his family and on December 26th the Dartmouth College swim team member went to the YMCA Selby Aquatic Center to swim laps. Ramsden's sister, cousin and uncle were also present at the pool wrote Channel 10 News Sarasota.
After swimming 4,000 yards, Ramsden attempted to swim 100 yards under water without breathing according to a Sarasota County Sheriff's Office incident report that has been quoted by several news sources.
Family members then noticed that the accomplished swimmer had stopped moving and alerted lifeguards, who subsequently removed him from the pool.
Ramsden was pronounced dead when lifeguards and emergency medical personnel could not revive him, stated the report.
The story has hit home hard with several triathletes.
"Most pools now do not allow anything like this and we will stop swimmers if we see it happening. Just so sad that people don't understand the risk on this even if you are a GREAT swimmer," said Andrea Fisher on Facebook. Fisher has a background as a pool aquatics director and has dealt with drowning before.
"Oh man. This is so sad. My heart breaks for the family. Share his story far and wide so that other swimmers will realize this is NOT something to attempt," wrote Rachel Sears Casanta on Facebook.
Wayne Bryant is a triathlete from Australia and he was a 22-year career soldier and has serious Special Forces experience. He said "Even in SEAL training each candidate has an experienced overseer each and a further one to meet him at the completion of the 50 meter swim. To even attempt it without any of these safe guards is flirting with disaster. This is a sad event."
