After reading another fellow Odyssey article titled "The Glorified Babysitter," I felt inclined to put my two cents in; mostly because this is a topic I feel quite passionately about.
Lifeguards have been around much longer than I've even been alive (which isn't that long, considering I'm 19). My father was a lifeguard before me, just as many people were lifeguards before him. But even if you aren't a lifeguard, you still probably the know the basics of the job. We make sure people are safe in and around the water. Although I've given a few too many bandaids in my time as a lifeguard, one role I should never have to take on is that of a babysitter.
And frankly, I'd just like to be taken a bit more seriously. But without the constant comparisons to Bay Watch.
I have been a lifeguard for nearly four years now, at both a pool and a waterfront. Fortunately, I have never performed a serious save, merely tiny pickups during swim lessons when a 4-year-old slipped off the staircase. However, that does not mean I am unprepared for more serious situations. I have been trained three times - once when I was first applying for the job, and two other times for recertification courses. I would also like to mention the fact that every course was about $200, and probably took about 40 hours each time. Lifeguarding is not some breeze of a job where you "get a tan" and "sit by the pool" for a few hours a day. I'm certified for CPR and first aid, I'm able to pull a stroke victim from the water.
If that's not clear enough, here's a description of what's required of us from a writer at Ohio State University, "Lifeguards begin their training with three in-water tasks. They must first swim 300 yards continuously, then they must tread water for 2 minutes using only their legs, and then they must perform an underwater brick retrieval, starting 20 yards away, diving to a depth of ten feet or more, and then swimming back to the start and exiting the pool, all under a minute and a half. An aspiring lifeguard must finish these tasks in order to even complete their training, failure to do so results in having to retake the course until they can complete these physical tasks. Following this portion, is the actual training process. Lifeguards must complete about twenty hours of skills training, both in water and in a classroom setting. They learn to perform CPR on adults, children and infants, how to use an automated external defibrillator to restart someone’s heart, how to perform multiple first aid tasks, and they learn over ten different water rescues and ways of entry."
Not many people can say that they've completed that and if you can, you probably feel my pain for what I'm about to explain.
Back when I was a Junior in high school, I was somewhat clueless as a lifeguard, and I would would shiver at the thought of having to perform a save. One day, a mother of two boys came up to my guard chair and asked me to watch her children. I simply responded, "Of course, I'm a lifeguard, that's what I'm here for." She then told me that she had to leave the building to get them new swimsuits (they were swimming in actual shorts, which I had not realized). She told me this as as her boys were pushing, shoving, and splashing water at each other.
My mouth dried and my eyes widened, since I had no idea what to say, and I was already lifeguarding for an entire birthday party of over a dozen 10-year old-boys. I was too scared to say anything, and now I was not only responsible for every other life there, but that mom had also left her children unattended.
No Lifeguard should not be put in this position. We are not babysitters, we do not pay hundreds of dollars to sit and make sure your kids behave. I will make sure your child is safe and doesn't drown, just as I will for the other patrons. So please, don't be the mother who leaves her six-year-old kid in floaties. I am not a glorified babysitter, I'm a lifeguard. As Cassie Kershner, the writer of "The Glorified Babysitter" wisely stated, "let us do our job."
