Drownproof: The True Story of a Special Forces Combat Diver

by Damone Brown

The following is an excerpt from Black People Can’t Swim: Finding the Faith to Defy Your Odds by Damone Brown.

Much is revealed about us through our preparation. My kids are athletes (runners). As I coach them, I often point out that their races aren’t won in the actual moments of the race. They are won or lost well before the event. The result often comes down to how they did or did not prepare.

For every military school that I have attended thus far in my career, I prepared for it with the mindset of taking myself to the deepest, darkest depths of pain that I could, so that anything asked of my body and mind during the school itself was seemingly easy. Pre-scuba was no different. Except this time, I was not the one taking myself to the deep dark places, it was my teammates.

I spent much of my military career in awe. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to do this. As I stood with my toes just behind the edge of the pool, hands behind my back, both my hands and feet bound, staring at the twelve-foot depth marker, I was certain that this wasn’t a time that I would be in awe. I was about to be introduced to the event known as Drownproofing.

Drownproofing was one of the most horrifying experiences of dive school. It is exactly what it sounds like, a survival technique originally developed by swimming coach Fred Lanoue to survive drowning and adapted by the military to make it a torturous survival technique. What was supposed to be easy and meant to offer most people rest, was extremely difficult and felt impossible for me. Floating is simply physics and I couldn’t float! There is positive buoyancy, neutral buoyancy (ideal), and there is me—negative buoyant! I am not sure why, some say that black people’s bones have a difference in mineral density, others say it is body fat distribution. I am completely unsure why, all I know is that I can take a very deep breath, fully inflating my lungs with air, and sink straight to the bottom of the pool and take a nap. Let me tell you, this is not the preferred technique.

This pass or fail event had six evolutions. It began with your dive buddy securing both your wrists and ankles with two Velcro straps while you stood at the edge of the pool dreading the audible command to “enter the water”. How could I not think of the time back at the lake where I almost drowned? I was still the same person who was a weak swimmer and couldn’t float. Only now I was hogtied with my hands and feet bound. There was an art to this exercise though—too tight and the straps could easily be kicked loose from the power of one dolphin kick. Too loose and it leaves you depending on your muscles to keep your hands and feet together, wasting energy that you would definitely need later in the event. Either one of these were causes for the cadre to immediately stop the event and issue an automatic failure and a plane ticket home.

 At the command to enter the water, you take one last deep breath and simultaneously jump in the water, with hands and feet bound, and begin to bob. To get to the bottom of the pool, you must begin exhaling as soon as your feet break the surface. It feels like it takes hours, but in reality it is only a few seconds until your feet touch the bottom. The first bob is the easiest because you have momentum working with you. This part of the exercise is actually where being negative buoyant helped me and I was able to reach the bottom of the pool faster than most. Once your feet touch, you can’t rush to the surface. Instead, you allow the weight of your whole body to come to the bottom with your feet, compress into a tight spring, and push off the bottom to return to the surface. This requires caution. Push off too hard and you risk breaking the restraints, which is seen as a form of panic.

Continue to exhale on your way up, to get rid of all of the carbon dioxide buildup in your lungs, making room for a bigger mouthful of fresh oxygen. Once your lips break the surface, you open your mouth as wide as possible and gasp for air before heading back down.

This evolution of the exercise lasts five minutes. Your hands and feet must stay bound while you continue this portion of the exercise. At this point, two things are important: to stay relaxed, and to keep your heart rate down. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines panic as a sudden unreasoning terror often accompanied by mass flight. The minute you panic you are done for.

Eventually, I got to where I could enter a near meditative state. I could only think about the present. I couldn’t think about the last three minutes or so that I completed because if I broke my focus, those minutes would no longer matter. I also couldn’t think of the next twelve to fifteen minutes of the test, because that too would break my focus and send me to a state of panic. Ignoring the past and the future, I could only think about the immediate moment.

The next command given is to float for two minutes. For most, this is a relaxing two minutes, for me, I could have used a fancy tech suit to improve my buoyancy keeping my hips closer to the surface. While in the fetal position, I lift my head quickly to the surface to fill my lungs with air quickly. With my head back in the water, I execute a few slight kicks returning my body to the surface and try to relax. Holding my breath as long as I can, I must continue to kick to stay near the surface. Just before needing my next breath, I exhale underwater. My experience is much different than most. I spend two minutes rhythmically kicking hard or at the bottom of the pool. Remaining in this position, the next command requires using a dolphin kick to complete a 100-yard swim around the perimeter of the pool. As I travel around the pool, my heart rate raises, and my brain analyzes the data of the situation, it is tempted to be alarmed. As my brain begins to crave air, it deceives me into thinking I am in a survival situation. Our brains always seek to solve survival-related problems. It is not the brain’s fault. Proper brain function requires oxygen and due to the hyperventilation, my brain is not receiving its necessary amount of oxygen. In this instance I must override the message that my brain is sending and remind myself it is not real. I had to control my emotions.

Our brains can be trained to perform better. They can be trained to think faster, process information more quickly, and perform executive functions better. Choosing to persevere through challenges builds the mental strength and resilience needed to not only handle adversity, but to thrive in it. Through the successful completion of these exercises, we become less inhibited by stress and develop stress resiliency.

The only way to stay afloat now is to swim faster, continuing to move forward to avoid sinking to the bottom—but this again raises the heart rate. My heart was racing, vibrating against my rib cage. My heart emitted the sound of a rapid firing bass drum, and

it echoed loudly. After traveling, I have five recovery bobs to try to get my heart rate down and prepare for the mask retrieval. Returning to the deep end of the pool from the swim, I am required to execute a front and back flip. Immediately after completing the flips, the instructor drops a dive mask. At this point, your heart feels like it is going to explode. Completing this exercise required more than the power of discipline and positive thinking. It required faith. I had to rely on my faith through this uncomfortable experience. I had to retrieve the mask, secure it in my teeth, and complete five more bobs. After all of the previous effort, if I fail to complete the bobs, accidentally break the restraints, drop the mask, or touch the sides of the pool, I fail.

Application:

Drownproofing is mostly mental. I had to learn to handle the pressure and navigate around it. My body is not built for it and it constantly sends signals to my mind that I cannot complete it. It is imperative to turn this part of my brain off because the body follows the mind. When your brain tells you that you have had enough, but you haven’t reached your physical threshold, push the wall further away. What is something that your body tells your mind that you cannot complete? What have you done to train through it?

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Damone Brown is a former Special Forces Combat Diver and founder of Olive Drab Technologies, LLC. His journey from enlistment to becoming one of the few black Combat Divers is a remarkable testament to his dedication, skill, and spirit. Damone’s story is one of breaking barriers and achieving the extraordinary, serving as an inspiration to all who dare to dream big. He resides in the Washington DC area with his wife and children.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.