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Notes -
I'm a pretty strong swimmer, but not a trained lifeguard or anything -- I'd keep my distance (although swim out there with a floaty if it seemed like it might help) from a drowning adult, but a literal drowning child I wouldn't hesitate to try to grab for any number of reasons. 'Sense of social duty' is one I guess, but not the main one -- have you ever played dunk/water wrestling with kids? You can literally throw them around while treading water, they are very unlikely to be able to drown you if you are actually a strong swimmer and a grown-ass man who outweighs them by 4x or whatever.
I think a lot of the times when people drown trying to save others is when they are not as good at swimming as they think they are, and underestimate the distance to the victim, currents etc -- also panic-swimming will tire you out pretty fast. So keep a cool head and do what you can -- it wouldn't be considered heroic behaviour if it weren't potentially dangerous. But I am not prepared to live with myself watching a kid drown from the shoreline.
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