Chronicles of a Lifeguard: Introduction

Log start: 9:24pm July 27th, 2010

Introduction:
My coach once told the team that being a lifeguard was going to be one of the best jobs that we ever had. It would be the highest payout of all pre-college degree summer jobs that a teenager can possibly have. Whilst I still believe that what coach said was true, he had left out the most important part; the amount of work that you would have to do to earn your buck.
Imagine your typical lifeguard, sitting at the side of the pool, looking over all of the happy swimmers who had come in for a swim at the pool to escape the summer heat or to just workout. Now put them in a category one.
These lifeguards who guard the pool for what is known as Recreational Swim are people who like to take it easy; I mean, how hard is your job when you just sit there watching people swim for countless hours knowing nothing spectacular will ever happen at the pool? I do Rec. Swim guarding somedays and I must say, it's the most boring thing ever. Knowing that fact that no sensible person will ever drown on your watch makes the job boring as ever. Although I shouldn't actually say that because some people have medical problems and situations do happen, but the smart ones usually tell you when they come in to the pool. But going through every week waiting for something as exciting has a nose bleed to come at you isn't really the most facinating thing ever.
Now, imagine your typical lifeguard and add in the teaching factor. These lifeguards are in category 2, a category that, unfortunately, I am currently stuck in. Category 2 lifeguards are teachers, inspiring the future minds in a skill that they will forever keep (hopefully) and possibly training future swimming prodigies such as Micheal Phelps. One can always dream, but one may not always get. As a category 2 lifeguard, we hold a higher salary than those lazy category ones, but not by much and definately not much more than it should be.
Before I continue, I should remind you that wages vary by where you work, so if you work at a place that pays better than decent, then you are one lucky person. If you end up finding a place that pays bad like I did, then we're on the same boat... unfortunately.
As I was saying, category 2 lifeguards are what most lifeguards will become and where most lifeguards will end their lifeguarding career. It's not sad, because according to coach, you've already served your primary purpose, which is to spread the knowledge of swimming to more than one person so that the sport of swimming may grow and dominate the rest of the sporting world. I'm not 100% sure i can agree with that, but lets stick with that for now.
Categories 3 and 4 are head lifeguards and aquatic directors, respectively, and not many of us C2's are able to advance to a c3, and not many c3's can become a c4. I am only in category 2, so lets stick with that for now.
But as I was saying before, the job eventually pays too little for the amount of work that you are required to do, especially where I work.
Compared to something like preping them in academics or teaching them a sport on dry land, the workload in teaching children how to swim is astronomical compared to everything else. Every lifeguard where I work know that everyday you have to risk your whole body, mind, and health on the line to teach these childen. These disease carrying, hyperactive, snot-filled hairballs go from cute to disgusting and annoying in a split second. A freshman guard on the staff loved children before she had to work, but after 2 weeks working with over 100 children a day, your whole mentality changes and you want to beat yourself up everyday.

Enough of lifeguard ranting though. Even though I may say things like this, it only reflects my opinion of children during work hours. After hours, things become normal again and some children still stay cute. You see children in their worst devilish forms in a few places, the pool is one of them.
Don't get me wrong, not 100% of the people you teach are insane. From time to time, there are people who listen to everything you say and they do their part of the work before they are allowed to play. The people who actually care for what you have to say to them makes the job what it is. They are the primary reason you do your job and as a lifeguard, you seek these type of people daily to cure your insanity during work hours.

To any lifeguards that read this, be prepared to read about everyday life as a lifeguard; nothing will be left behind.
To any parents that read this, you will never want your child taught by the wrong people again; find a nice place to enroll them in for swimming classes, because if they're taught by the wrong teachers, it will take 500% more effort to re-learn it the correct way.
To any future lifeguards that read this, find a nice place to work, make sure you're getting paid sufficiently for the amount of work that you need to do.
To any children or persons learning how to swim, you are the bane of my existence during work hours, some of you might be the cutest little things ever, some of you might be the best student ever, but most of you are little balls of evil and you should never piss your lifeguard off because every single one of us knows how to defeat you.

This has been an introduction to Chronicles of a Lifeguard, a multi-part blog post that fully describes the work area of a lifeguard with no details left behind.

HakoneDayDreamer, as I record these sensitive details, they will be posted on the blog but not publically made known on facebook until the end of my work summer work hours.

Lights, Camera, Action

Log start: 2:23am Sunday July 25th, 2010

Suddenly the spotlight is directed to you unexpectedly. How will you react? How will you feel during the sudden suprise and how will you feel afterwards when you've had a chance to think about it?

Let me tell you the happenings of today (saturday).

So, today, regular boring ass day at work. Originally, my friends planned a day at Long Beach, but i couldn't go due to work...
So about 2 nights ago after a huge thunderstorm, the weather people (such idiots) issued a tornado watch or warning, i forgot, for long beach. so the group was like "nahhhhh" and they came to hang out at my pool instead.

Cool stuff. After the pool, we went to another friends house to play some ping pong in his backyard.
Short story, he baught a really nice ping pong table for his backyard and since we decided on dinner later, we had some time to kill before heading to dinner. We brought the pong table out to his backyard and we played ping pong there.

We played for maybe an hour until we hear a big BOOM in the near distance. Us being college students, established right away that the sound was due to a car accident that was not far away from my friends house. My friend Hao, being the more curious type strolled on faster than the rest of us up a mini hill driveway to find a car accident and yells out "OH SHIT, IT'S A CAR ACCIDENT"

Right then and there, my automated professional first aid mode kicked in and i ran as fucking fast that could in sandals to analyze the situation.

When we got there, there were two cars involved in the accident, the worse of the two cars had his front bumper torn off and the driver had bailed to the passenger seat (i don't know how that happened, but i arrived with it looking like that).
My first instinct was to call 911, as it is the first thing that we are taught in first aid class. We are only there to assist the people until people with better training arrives. So as i'm talking to this 911 operator, i asked the guy "CAN I HELP YOU? I'M TRAINED IN CPR."

Fail #1.

the correct wording would be "can i help you? i'm currently certified in first aid"

This was one of the things that i couldn't believe i had said until it had left my mouth and that i couldn't believe i said after i had A LOT of time to think about it.
I guess all of that messing around at work got to me... It's my first time being the first professional rescuer at a real accident scene and my heart was pounding when i saw the accident. I knew i could of done something, so i did it, for the safety of the people that were involved in the accident. If i know that i could do something and i just stood around and watched, it would of been such a dick move and i couldn't of lived with that conscience my whole life.

Called 911, ask the guy what happened and told him to stay still until EMS arrived. ( i suspected a head, neck, and back injury. LOL. )
the police station was about 8 blocks away, the fire department 3 blocks away, and a hospital 5 blocks away. i live in an area where (thank god) a lot of things are near.
As soon as i started talking to the guy, i hear the firehouse sirens and i calmed down.
As there was no immediate danger to the man and no life threatening forces in the accident scene, there was honestly nothing i could do to help the man, by the time i ran inside to my friends house to get a first aid kit (lol) the paramedics would of already arrived. so i just stood there watching the guy until the fire department came, then i strolled quickly back to my friends who were watching from the sidewalk and taking massive quantities of picures...

The guys left arm was cut up with bruises and had cuts without squirting blood, and the side of his head was rashed up, probably from the cars side curtain airbag. nothing more i could of done.

Once fire dept, police, and finally the ambulance came, i was just another innocent bystander.

But seriously. My first "real" accident, i splurted my words out incorrectly and i couldn't do anything except call 911.
My instructors say that it's always the most important part in the accident cycle, so i guess i did do the most important first step! *pats self on back*

But this brings up a question of what if. What if this were to happen again later on in my life where i'm the first professional on the scene? what would i do? what would i be able to do? would i splurt out my words correctly after the first time? would my actions mean life or death?

when you're put under pressure, everything changes. all the training you did only accounts for 50% of the things that you do in a situation.
It's just as surprising as someone shining a spotlight at you all of a sudden and telling you to dance. you'd go, "wtf??"
this was a "wtf" moment for me when i first saw it. i was like "this shit isn't happening to me... FML... but GOGOGO, ALL YOUR TRAINING TELLS YOU TO BE A GOOD SAMARITAIN."
i honestly wanted to help, there was nothing i could do. and even when the fire dept and police came, they treated the guy the wrong way. they asked him if he can move his legs and after he said yes, they asked him if he could walk a bit out of the car.

SERIOUSLY?? you guys who are trained in professional rescue care who are reading this should also go "SERIOUSLY?"

the dude was just in a serious car accident, you don't give him a neck brace and you TELL HIM TO MOVE??? good thing EMS came soon enough and was like "NONONO, STAY STILL!!!"

-_-"

but yeah, this brings up a lot of questions for me and for similarly trained people like me who ave never witnessed an accident.

What would you do to help? what CAN you do to help? and how would you react?

i relied on my insticts today and i hopped on my phone right away calling 911.
good thing to know for future accidents, that a lot of this rescuing business is already imprinted into my head.

I really wish i could of helped more, the guy was in pain, his left arm was probably either broken or dislocated, there was probably head trauma and serious internal bleeding. But i didn't want to risk doing anything wrong on the off chance that i did because the fire dept was already 2 blocks away, am i a bad person for thinking like that?
i haven't that time to think about that yet, but for future references, i will know what to do. hopefully i'll be more trained in helping and hopefully i can say the correct line...

when all pressure is on you, shit changes. you discard most that you have been taught during training and all you need to know is to not fuck shit up because so many peoples lives can either be saved or destroyed by your hands. we are the barrier between the people who are hurt to the moment that EMS arrives.

I probably need to think about the situation a but more tommorow... i'm sleepy... -_-

HakoneDayDreamer, i really felt like i could do more, but i couldn't do it...