You and your family are going away for the weekend. Your daughter is 7 and is best friends with your niece, who is also 7. Your families are very close and your daughter asks if your niece can come with you on your holiday. You have been on holidays together before and don’t see any problem, so you agree.

You arrive at your holiday destination and the house you are staying at backs onto a beach. The girls ask if they can go for a swim. You tell them that they have to wait until you have unpacked the car, but they can play on the sand directly in front of the beach. They run down to the sand, and you begin to unpack the car. After about 5 minutes, you hear screaming coming from the direction of the beach and it sounds like the girls.

You run down to see what the matter is, and you discover that they hadn’t listened to you and have gone for a swim. There is no one else on the beach and the girls are caught in a rip.

The girls are really struggling, particularly your niece who isn’t as strong a swimmer as your daughter.

You swim out quickly, but when you get there, you realize that there is no way you will be able to get both the girls back into shore on your own. You realize that an agonizing decision will need to be made.

You need to decide which of the girls you will rescue first, you have enough strength and energy to rescue them both, but you can only do it one at a time. You look at the two girls, and your niece is really struggling to hold her head above water and you know if you take your daughter back first, there will be little or no chance that she will survive.

Your daughter is struggling also, but is much stronger in the water and you estimate that if you take your niece back to shore first, there’s probably a 50% chance that your daughter will be able to stay afloat long enough for you return, but you simply don’t know how long she will hold on for.

Since they're 7, and one of them isn't a strong swimmer, I doubt they'd be out too far, so you could take the niece to where she can stand up and go back for your daughter.

Otherwise, you should go for your niece since she can't swim as well, and there's a good chance that your daughter can survive, compared to the almost zero chance of the niece. She would also be able to hold her breath for longer if there is a disaster so she has a greater chance of surviving. So you have a fairly good chance she'll live.

After they're both back safely, its bath night every night for not listening.

After they're both back safely, its bath night every night for not listening.

If I was the daughter or niece, I wouldn't find it a punishment lol.

I would do the same as Jordan, for the same reasons.

Quote from: Trix Twice on May 17, 2012, 07:33:29

After they're both back safely, its bath night every night for not listening.

If I was the daughter or niece, I wouldn't find it a punishment lol.

I would if I had just had a near-drowning experience. I don't think I would go near water for a while.

For two very young girls in this situation, I have no idea how you can figure out all these facts before you go in the water, cause usually in these situations for me its a case of just going for the first thing that pops into your head.

For me, I would obviously try and save them both. Depending on the depth of the water, I would probably try and rescue the niece and then try the daughter only because it makes sense to go and help the one that is struggling the most. Unless you can tell the daughter to hold onto your neck and lift the niece up and 'tank' the process.

My mind usually wins from my instincts/ feelings so I would probably rescue the niece first, it's a calculated risk. I do however understand most people wouldn't and find that to be (in some way) admirable.