Not Waving but Drowning Not Waving but Drowning "Not Waving but Drowning" is a poem by the British poet Stevie Smith. It was published in 1957 as part of a collection of the same title. The most famous of Smith's poems, it gives an account of a drowned man whose distressed thrashing in the water had been mistaken for waving. The poem was accompanied by one of Smith's drawings, as was common in her work. The poem's personal significance has been the topic of several pieces of literary criticism because Smith was treated for psychological problems. She contemplated suicide at the age of eight
Drowning tries to get up and move, not realizing their core body temperature is still very low and will take a long time to recover. Most victims of cold-water drowning do not develop hypothermia quickly enough to decrease cerebral metabolism before ischemia and irreversible hypoxia occur. The neuroprotective effects appear to require water temperatures below about 5 °C. The World Health Organization in 2005 defined drowning as "the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid". This definition does not imply death, or even the necessity for medical treatment after removal of the cause, nor that any fluid enters the