One of the most famous facts about this lake on the border of Israel and Jordan is its amazing salinity, which prevents people from drowning. We checked how correct this statement is.

The fact that it is impossible to drown in the Dead Sea, reports such sources as BBC, book "In the world of entertaining facts", school textbook "Geography in the fifth grade" And many others. Jacob Perelman in his "Entertaining physics", at the same time quoting a fragment from the "simpletons abroad" Mark Twain: “It was a funny bathing! We could not drown. Here you can stretch out on the water in full length, lying on your back and folding your arms over your chest, and most of the body will remain above the water. <...> If you float face down, then you do not move forward, but back. ”

Indeed, it is a lake with a surface area of 605 km² Unique in a number of parameters. Its surface is located on height About 434 m below the sea level and steadily falls, which makes the coast of the Dead Sea with the lowest section of land on Earth. In ancient times, the reservoir served as the largest source of natural asphalt, which is why in literature until the end of the 19th century there was also a name given to him by the Romans Lacus Asphaltites. The last time the block of asphalt surfaced to the surface of the lake in the 60s of the XX century, and it weighed more than a ton. As for the dead, this name was assigned to the lake for the same reason, because of which in Hebrew it is called the salty sea or sea of salt (יַ הַמֶּלַ). The fact is that the salinity of water in the Dead Sea is about 31–35%, which is about ten times more than the salinity of the oceans. As a result, surviving to organisms in such an environment is very, very difficult. Nevertheless, another popular fact that was distributed the same Yakov Perelman (“Its water is unusually saline, so that no living creature cannot live in them”) or editors of the encyclopedia Brockhaus and Efron (“All organic life is absent”), in fact, it turns out to be a myth: there are no higher organisms in the lake, but here Lives About 20 strains of Archaei (ancient and very tenacious microbes), more than 70 types of molds, viruses, as well as seasons - Dunalilah Little Fatherly Algae.

However, we are primarily interested in the opportunity to drown in the Dead Sea. It would seem that its high salinity, because of which the body itself is pushed out of dense water, really makes drowning impossible.

However, even a runaway media view may surprise people who are distant from the topic: news constantly arises that people are drowning in the lake (One case, another, third). In 2017, this sad fate befell a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Vasily Tarasuka. According to statistics, for example, in 2009, 45 people drowned or drowned in the Dead Sea, in 2010 - 21, and in 2012 8% All the drowned in the reservoirs of Israel had to do this lake.

The case, it turns out, boils down to what exactly is meant by the word “drown”. "Explanatory Dictionary of Dahl"Defines it as" go to the bottom, immerse himself in water or into another liquid, without popping up. " This definition is ideal for inanimate objects. As for people, we all heard about cases when they drowned, choked in water, but not plunging at the bottom of the reservoir (even in our own bath, like this It happened With the famous singer Whitney Houston). Therefore, for the civilian concept of “drowning”, others are more relevant definitions, found on the sites of medical institutions:

Drowning is a terminal state or death due to aspiration (penetration) of liquid into the respiratory tract, reflex cardiac arrest in cold water or spasm of the voice gap, which as a result leads to a decrease or termination of gas exchange in the lungs;

drowning - a type of mechanical asphyxiation (suffocation) as a result of water entering the respiratory tract

With this understanding of the term, everything falls into place. Indeed, the Dead Sea deserved Glory A rather dangerous place for swimming, because in it because of the wind or simply relaxing it is very easy to turn over and be face in the water, swallowing some of its amounts. And this may turn out to be a fatal error for two reasons. Firstly, the very ingress of a large amount of water into the body and causes directly the same state of asphyxia that was discussed above. Secondly, as we already know, this water is extremely salty, which, according to research, can launch dangerous processes within the body, from heart to stomach, even in children, not to mention older people (who are many among those who drown in the Dead Sea). Therefore, in such a context, it is very possible to drown in the reservoir considered by us.

It is characteristic that in English, unlike Russian, there are two verbs meaning “drown”: to sink (sink to the bottom like "Titanic") And To Drown (choke in water like Whitney Houston). And English sites often emphasize completely correctly that people in the Dead Sea are not capable of Make the firstbut they can Make the second. Moreover, Mark Twain, who in original used the verb to sink, which was ambiguously translated by Jacob Perelman, but quite successfully served in another translation: "We could not plunge into the water in any way."

Therefore, we can confidently say that the question of the opportunity to drown in the Dead Sea lies purely in the field of interpretation of the specified verb.