I speak for a lot of us when I say this academic year has not been kind. With Kate’s, Enzo’s and Ryan’s passings, death has been brushing past us in ways none of us were prepared for, leaving marks on this community that will not simply fade with the season. I want to speak on behalf of my own experience navigating Enzo’s passing, not because I think my grief is the loudest in the room, but because I hope something in it reaches whoever needs it most. I also want to share how I plan to move forward, make meaning out of the meaningless and carry Enzo’s legacy into the world the way he always deserved.
Enzo — my best friend, partner of two years and the person I had passionately built an entire future around — passed away on the linguistics department’s study abroad in New Zealand. If you have talked to me about him since, I have probably told you about hypoxic blackout. If I haven’t, I want to take this space to highlight its danger and to introduce the organization I plan to create to spread awareness about it.
Most of us carry a simple understanding of drowning: that the body panics, that the distress is visible, that there is a moment where something could be done. Hypoxic blackout defies all of that.
Contrary to intuition, the body’s reflex to breathe is not primarily triggered by low oxygen, but by rising carbon dioxide levels in the blood. Hyperventilating before a breath-hold — a common practice among swimmers trying to extend their time underwater — artificially lowers the body’s CO₂ levels in a state called hypocapnia. This practice merely suppresses the brain’s signal to breathe and does not increase the body’s oxygen concentration significantly. After hyperventilating, a swimmer can continue holding their breath even as their oxygen levels fall to dangerously low thresholds, below those required to maintain consciousness. When this happens, a person can faint without any subjective feeling of distress or urgency. Without an immediate save, drowning is imminent. This is what happened to Enzo.
What I’ve found most difficult to process in the past few months is how preventable hypoxic blackout seems and the indiscriminate danger it poses even to people who have devoted their lives to water. Enzo was responsible in every sense: He took swimming lessons as a kid, completed health and safety courses and understood the dangers of water. No one ever taught him about the risk of hypoxic blackout. Nor did a single person I’ve talked to after-the-fact know about this. It is not covered in swim instructions, health classes, EMT training or standard safety education.
Some estimates suggest hypoxic water blackout accounts for up to 20% of all accidental drownings. In December 2015, Tate Ramsden ’17, a member of Dartmouth’s Division 1 swim team, lost his life to this exact condition. Anita Alvarez, a two-time Olympian, sank unconscious to the bottom of the pool due to a hypoxic blackout at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships and survived only because her coach dove in fully-clothed to pull her out.
Before I learned any of this, I was upset with everyone and everything in ways I am not fully proud of. I was selfishly, achingly upset with Enzo himself, for leaving so early when we had planned every corner of our lives together.
I was upset with myself. At 7:25 p.m. Hanover time, I called him — 2:25 p.m. in Rarotonga, one of the Cook Islands, where Enzo was. Seven minutes later, I hung up for dinner, during which a friend coincidentally asked me how Enzo and I met. I remember walking out of Foco at 8:44 p.m. post-dinner and calling him again on my way home. I wouldn’t find out until 12:52 a.m., but by the time I called him, he had already passed away across the world — during the exact time period I had been telling the story of falling in love with him here in Hanover. I spent so long wishing I had stayed on the phone longer, made plans with him for that night or said something that would have changed the geography of those hours. Then, beneath that guilt, came anger.
I was upset with the students who were on the study abroad and in the pool with him for not saving him. I want to be honest about that, because I think it’s part of grief that people don’t often say aloud. Before my grief became something I could hold rather than something that held me, I was angry that they would get to move forward with their friends, partners and bright futures while Enzo’s and mine were shattered. Over time, I came to understand that no one taught them about hypoxic blackouts any more than anyone taught Enzo. They were just as failed by the same lack of education that failed Enzo.
I often tell myself Enzo is still on a study abroad. It is the lie that gets me through certain mornings. Then I see his study abroad classmates back on campus and the story I tell myself falls apart. They have become, through no fault of their own, living proof of something I am not always ready to accept. My frustration and anger still continues to evolve, as does my grief. I am hurt by a world that continues to move forward and the people in it who hold hands and make plans without knowing what has been lost.
It stings to encounter anything or anyone tied to Enzo, but it’s also a testimony to just how vast and alive he was: linguistics, a cappella, taekwondo, jiu-jitsu, Brazil, Peru, Minnesota, cognitive science, music, composition, language acquisition, Benin, New Zealand, card tricks, chess, percussion, college music bands, Korean, Maori, Turkish. A life so wide, curious and generous that more than half of this campus carries some thread of him.
And then there is the bike. If you know Enzo, you know the bike: stupidly big, fat-tired, black and red striped, a Mongoose his father found and customized for him. His brother Luca and I keep it safe now; we have treated it more gently than Enzo ever did. But there is another one of those bikes on this campus, one Enzo had noticed and been delighted by. When I see it, my brain insists, for half a second, that he parked it somewhere nearby.
At times I am still upset with Dartmouth, for knowing, a decade ago, and not acting. For having lost a D1 swimmer to this exact condition and not embedding that knowledge into every pool, safety training and orientation. But I have learned that staying inside that anger consumes me entirely. And that doesn’t benefit anyone.
That is why Enzo’s family and I have decided to build something. We are forming an organization dedicated to becoming the source of information that could have saved Enzo, Tate and all of the others. We want to make meaning out of this, to move forward with him beside us.
Enzo was a Mellon Mays scholar whose work centered on expanding English as a Second Language access for immigrant families, weaving in music so that the events could be joyful and family-inclusive, so that parents wouldn’t need childcare arrangements just to learn English. His life’s work was about reaching the people that systems forgot to reach. Now, so is ours.
Speaking about hypoxic blackout has already led me to stop four people from practicing the breath-hold techniques that nearly no one knows are dangerous. With organization, dedication and love, I believe we can reach thousands, and my life’s goal now is to see this recognized at a legislative level.
In the United States, there is only one organization dedicated to this cause, and it has been as active as we’d like them to be. We want to close that gap. Through endsilentdrownings.org, we aim to create the resource that should have always existed: A social media presence, educational materials and a push toward legislation that would require this knowledge in every swim lesson and safety course in the country. If you’d like to be part of this as a volunteer, an advocate or simply someone who cares, please visit our website, Instagram (@endsilentdrownings) or contact me. This work needs all of us.
If this piece reaches even one person; if it makes one swimmer pause, one parent ask a question, one coach add a sentence to their training, then Enzo is still doing exactly what he always wanted to do. He is still touching lives.
Enzo, in every language you touched, and even in ones you never got to learn, we love you. Te llevamos en el alma. 사랑해. Seni çok ama çok seviyoruz ve özlüyoruz. Estás sempre no nosso coração. Aroha ana matou ki a koe.
And we always will.
