Electric Shock Drowning Risk Card

Energised water looks exactly like safe water. There is no shimmer, no smell, no sound, and afterwards there is usually no mark on the body — which is why these deaths are so often recorded as ordinary drownings, and why almost no family has ever heard of this. The short version: you cannot read this hazard off the water, so you have to read it off the power before anyone is wet — and if it does happen, the rescue you have been taught your whole life is the one thing that will kill you too. Four questions, one power audit, ten minutes.

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🚨 Before Anything Else — The Rescue Runs Backwards Here

Do not get in. Not even to reach. Every other page on this site tells you to get to the child. This is the one place where entering the water, or leaning in with a wet arm, puts you into the same circuit that is holding them. Would-be rescuers have died this way, sometimes more than one at a single dock.
Kill the power first. Unplug the shore power cord, hit the pedestal breaker, or throw the main breaker for the dock, the boathouse or the pool equipment. Cutting the power is the rescue. Everything else is second.
Then throw, never go. Throw a ring, a cushion, a rope, a life jacket. If you must extend something, use a wooden or fibreglass oar or boat hook — never an aluminium pole, and never while standing in a puddle.
Shout to everyone else in the water: get out, swim away from the dock, do not touch the ladder or any metal. The ladder and the dock frame may be the energised part. Away from the structure is the direction to safety, not towards it.
Call 911, and start CPR once the person is out and the power is off. Tell the dispatcher you suspect an electrical shock in the water — it changes what the crew brings and what they look for.

Why this section is first and not last. On every other card we publish, the emergency page is the part you hope never to read. Here it is the part most likely to be wrong in your head right now, because you already know the correct answer for every other kind of drowning and it is the wrong answer for this one. Read it before you need it. There will be no time to re-learn it on the dock.

⚡ Question 1 — Is There AC Power Within Reach of This Water?

Walk the shoreline and count the power. Shore power pedestals, dock lights, outlets on posts, a boat lift, an aerator, a fountain pump, a bubbler or de-icer, a fish-cleaning station, a boathouse, a pressure washer, a radio on an extension cord. If the answer is anything other than zero, this is a powered dock.
Count the neighbours too. The fault does not have to be yours. A boat two slips away with a damaged shore power cord can energise the water around your ladder, which is why the answer is never simply “our dock is fine”.
Nobody swims at a marina or a powered dock. Safety organisations put the line at roughly 100 yards from any freshwater marina, boatyard or powered dock — and would rather swimming near them were prohibited outright. This is not a caution to weigh against how hot the day is. It is the whole prevention strategy.
The backyard version of the same question. Pool and spa pumps, heaters, underwater lights, robotic cleaners, a speaker at the edge, string lights, an extension cord run out to the deck. Extension cords and pools do not belong in the same yard, and corded appliances stay well back from the water.
Look up. Overhead power lines have to be kept well clear of the water by the electrical code — a substantial horizontal distance, not a few feet. Nobody swims under a line, and no pole, skimmer net or inflatable goes up near one.

If the power cannot be switched off, the answer is no swimming here. Not “swim on the far side”, not “only the strong swimmers”. A dock where the power cannot be cut is a dock nobody enters the water from.

💧 Question 2 — Is It Fresh Water?

Fresh water is the multiplier, and almost nobody knows it. Fresh water conducts electricity poorly compared with a human body. Current looking for a path finds a child easier to travel through than the lake — so it goes through them.
Salt water works the other way. It conducts well enough that most of the current flows around a swimmer rather than through them. That is why this hazard belongs to lakes, rivers, reservoirs and inland marinas far more than to the ocean.
Brackish and in-between water gets treated as fresh. A tidal river, an estuary marina, a lake that turns over — you are not going to measure salinity on a Saturday. Assume the dangerous case.
A swimming pool is fresh water. So is a hot tub, a pond, and an inflatable pool filled from the hose. The lake-house rules on this card apply in the backyard.

The number that explains why strong swimmers drown. It takes astonishingly little current to end a swim. Around 5 milliamps begins to interfere with muscle control, and roughly 10 milliamps can lock the muscles so a person cannot swim, cannot grab the ladder and cannot shout — far below the level that burns skin or leaves any mark at all. The current does not take the skill away. It takes the muscles away, and skill is no use without them.

🧪 Question 3 — Who Tested the Protection, and When?

Ground-fault protection is the whole defence, and it is invisible until it is tested. Ask the marina or the dock owner one question: when was the ground-fault protection last tested, and by whom? A shrug is an answer.
“It’s newer” is not a test. “It’s never tripped” is not a test. A device that has never tripped is indistinguishable from a device that stopped working two seasons ago. Only a test tells them apart.
At a dock or marina: a licensed electrician, not a handy neighbour. Dock and marina wiring is governed by specific standards — the National Electrical Code’s marina article and the NFPA marina and boatyard standard — and it wants somebody who knows them. Ground-fault protection on the feeders and the branch circuits is the point of the exercise.
On the boat: an ELCI, and a cord you actually look at. An equipment leakage circuit interrupter on the boat’s shore power, plus an inspection of the cord every time you plug in — cracked jacket, bent or burnt pins, a plug that feels warm, a stack of adapters. Have the boat’s electrical system checked by a marine electrician, and again after any work.
At home: GFCI on everything near the water, tested monthly. Pool and spa pumps, heaters, underwater lights and every outlet near the water need ground-fault protection. Press the test button once a month — the same month you test the smoke alarms. A flickering underwater light, a rewired pump, or any repeated tripping gets an electrician, not a reset.
Metal parts should be bonded. Ladders, handrails, the pool shell, pumps and dock frames are meant to be tied together electrically so that no voltage difference can build up between them. That is an electrician’s job and a question to ask — not a DIY afternoon.

Write the answer down. The grid further down this card exists so that “when was it last tested” has a date in it rather than an impression. If the box is empty at the start of the season, that is the season’s first job.

🤏 Question 4 — Does Everyone Here Know What a Tingle Means?

A tingle in the water is not “something in the water”, a cramp, or a jellyfish. It is electricity — and it is the only warning this hazard ever gives. It means current is already in the water and is already passing through somebody.
The instruction is the same for every person in the water: swim away from the dock, the boat, the ladder and any metal, and get out at the shore. Away from the structure, not towards it. Do not reach for the ladder — the ladder may be the source.
Children have to have heard this sentence before the trip. A child who feels a tingle will reach for the nearest handhold, which is exactly wrong. This is something you say in the car, not on the dock.
A tingle anywhere means the power comes off and nobody goes back in that day. Not once it stops. It gets reported to the marina office or the dock owner, and it gets an electrician before anyone swims there again.
Believe the child. “It felt weird” or “my arm went funny” from a six-year-old is the report. Treat it as one.

The reason this card exists at all. Almost every hazard on this site teaches a family something when it nearly goes wrong — a scare at the shallow end, a gate found open, a life jacket that rode up over a chin. This one does not. Energised water leaves no mark on the body, and the cause of death is drowning, so families and even investigators frequently never learn that electricity was involved. No near miss will warn you, the story never travels around the lake, and the only defence left is deciding on the dock, dry, from the presence of power.

📋 The Power Audit — Fill This In Once per Location

Where we swim	AC power in reach?	Fresh water?	Protection last tested (date / by whom)	Power shutoff is…	Verdict
Our dock / boathouse
The marina we visit
Neighbour’s or rental dock
Our pool or hot tub
The boat’s shore power
Swim beach / no-power spot

How to score it. Power in reach and fresh water and no tested protection → nobody swims here. Power in reach and fresh water and protection tested this season → swim only with the power off at the pedestal or breaker. No AC power anywhere near the water → this is your swim spot, and the rest of our water safety guidance takes over from here. Notice that the best line on the whole grid is the one with no power in it at all — finding a powerless place to swim beats managing a powered one.

🗓️ Our Family Electrical Water Plan

Where we swim instead of the dock

Who cuts the power, and from where

Shore power / pedestal breaker location

Pool equipment breaker location

Throwable flotation is kept at

Non-metal reaching pole is kept at

Electrician / marine electrician and number

Marina office or dock owner number

Date GFCI / ELCI last tested

Month we test it every year

The sentence our kids can repeat back

Date agreed

The sentence, if you want one to borrow: “If the water tingles, swim away from the dock and get out at the shore — do not grab the ladder, and shout.” A child who can say it back has the card.

Created by WaterWiseKids.com — Free water safety education for families

This card is a family planning tool, not an electrical inspection, a code compliance document, or a substitute for a licensed electrician. Electrical work on docks, marinas, boats and pools is governed by codes and standards that vary by location and must be carried out by a qualified professional. In an emergency call 911. Safety guidance: National Fire Protection Association, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Electric Shock Drowning Prevention Association, U.S. Coast Guard.

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