Martina Chione
English 101
Did you
know that drowning is the number one cause of death in the world? That explains
all the water, and it also explains all the lifeguards who do not do their jobs
right.
The world of lifeguards is an
unknown topic to society. If I walked up to a random person on the street and
asked them what they thought about gay marriage, they would probably have an
answer. If I asked them what they thought should be done about the problem with
lifeguards, they would most likely be confused. Anything about lifeguards is
rarely brought up on the news, or seen in a newspaper, until someone drowns.
And then when the news reporter delivers the story to the public, they make the
lifeguards and the companies look like they did everything they could. A better
lifeguard knows that the drowning could have been prevented. Everyone should
know that.
While doing
some research for a paper I wrote a few months ago, I found many stories about
drownings that were under the care of lifeguards. They made the lifeguard
company look innocent. The lifeguards did exactly what they were trained to do
by the company. That makes it the fault of the company, not the individual
lifeguards.
Drowning can be and usually is
quick and silent. It is the fifth highest cause of unintentional injury death
in the United States .
From 2005 to 2009, 3,533 people died from drowning in non-boat related
incidents. Children from the age of 1 to 4 drowned the most. Many of these
incidents happened under the care of lifeguards.
There are five stages of drowning:
Surprise! In this stage, a person begins to struggle at the surface but is
still able to get air in their lungs. It usually lasts for around thirty
seconds. Involuntary Breath Holding: after the person has tired, they cannot
get up for air, thus being forced to hold their breath. Unconsciousness: this
stage is exactly what it says. The person’s lungs begin to fill with water. Hypoxic
Convulsion: the person has already taken in water and is unconscious. Puss
begins to ooze out of their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Their body becomes
rigid and their may be jerking motions. Death: when they have reached this
stage, the person is clinically dead which means that they can still be brought
back, but from the moment their heart stops beating, their chance of survival
drops by ten percent every minute. These stages of drowning can occur all
within sixty seconds. The person needs aid rendered before they pass the first
stage.
If death is not the result of a
serious near drowning, then there are other extreme results such as physical
inability or permanent brain damage. Most parents do not know how to render aid
to a child after they have stopped breathing. Some parents may not be able to
get their child off of the bottom of as little as four feet of water.
“If you go to any other lifeguard
company and ask them for a cup of water, they will bring you exactly what you
asked for. If you ask a Jeff Ellis lifeguard for a cup of water, they will
bring you a cup of water with ice, a lemon slice on the side, a napkin, and a
little umbrella on top. When you tell them you didn’t need all that, they will
tell you its no problem, they do it every time.”
When people go to a pool for a
swim, they expect the lifeguard to sit there in the chair and look at the
water. What a lifeguard needs to deliver to a guest is the quote about the cup
of water.
One reason
that lifeguards may be so overlooked is the fact that lifeguarding has been so
abused in the past hundred or so years. Strategies were never developed to
ensure that a lifeguard was able to protect people at the highest level
possible.
A lifeguard’s task as a first
responder is to ensure the safety of the guests at a pool or beach, but
unfortunately not just any lifeguard company does that. Before I became a
lifeguard myself, I used to think the same as most other people; a person with
a rescue tube is sitting in a chair, I am safe. My mind never thought to strive
beyond that thought. But when my friend got me involved with the company Jeff
Ellis Management, I finally woke up to the problems that are always being
hushed. I realized the problem with drownings around not just the US ,
but the entire world.
A few months ago I found many
stories on the internet about drownings that were under the care of lifeguards.
In the stories, the lifeguards did exactly what they were trained and taught to
do. In the end, the people drowned anyway. While reading these stories, I
realized that the drownings could have very well been prevented if the
lifeguards had been trained better and their supervisors were stricter with
them. If the lifeguard company had had good work standards that were used with
every lifeguard, those people could have been saved before they even passed the
first stage of drowning. I was able to see the holes and flaws in these stories
because of my knowledge of lifeguards. If every person in the world saw how a
lifeguard really should be, they would be able to see the problems with these
situations as well.
What was really sad about the
stories is that not even the parents of the dead children knew what the real
issue was. They blamed themselves and did not realize that their child should
have been saved even if they were not watching them. The close family and
friends of drowned people in these situations can be the strongest voices in
the fight for better lifeguards.
While doing some research on this
paper, I Googled drowning to see what I would get. I found many websites that
described drowning, its causes, and ways it can be avoided. But not in any of
them did I see anything about lifeguards as a way to avoid a drowning, much
less anything about lifeguards who actually do their jobs. The world of lifeguards
and its problems needs to be openly public. Everyone knows about cancer. With
drownings being the fifth largest cause of death in the US ,
the problems with lifeguards needs to be just as important.
A person can go to college to
become an accountant, graduate, and get a job, and they are an accountant. Just
as well, a lifeguard can take the training, get a job, and be a lifeguard. This
is not true. There are many lifeguard trainings out there who call themselves
professional, but when it comes down to it, they are inaccurate, sometimes
behind, and are not strict enough such as passing students who still cannot get
something right. A lifeguard may have papers that say they have completed
training, but that does not mean they are going to do their job right.
The problem with many lifeguard
companies is this; if they do not have set specific and strictly enforced rules
for the guards that are used at every body of water guarded by that company
then each personal lifeguard will have their own level of leeway with
themselves and other guards. This attitude rubs off on new guards as they join
the company, and as the current guards work longer and move up in position,
they also develop in their heads what they think should be expected from the
lifeguards. Unfortunately, if a lifeguard was trained and disciplined wrong
from the very beginning, they will most likely do the same to the new guards
who come after them, thus loosing almost all manner of professionalism,
awareness, and self control. Lifeguarding is a very important job and needs to
be taken seriously by every company with utmost care.
I have had several experiences with
lifeguards who did not do their job correctly. One of them was when I was six
years old. I remember it clearly. I was at a pool in Oregon
with my family and grandparents when I decided to sneak off by myself. I was
wearing a lifejacket and decided to jump in over my head. As soon as I hit the
water, I began to panic. Even though I now know I was not drowning, I thought I
was at the time. I flailed my way screaming back to the edge of the pool. I
remember the lifeguard yelling at me to stop screaming. When I did find my way
out of the water, the lifeguard made me sit on the stand until my mom came out
of the locker rooms.
Ten years later when I had my first
rescue as a new lifeguard, the little boy was in a lifejacket. He came out of
the slide and began to panic. He got stuck in the middle of the pool. I knew
that I had to get that kid out immediately. Panic can still turn to something
bad.
Why did that lifeguard in my
situation not get me out, but yell at me and then sit me out of the pool?
Whether someone was keeping a close eye on me or not, the lifeguard still could
have gotten me. I understand that lifeguards are not glorified babysitters and
that parents should watch their kids, but that is no excuse for a drowning or
panicking child.
Many things can be done to take
care of this problem around the world with lifeguards. In fact, there are
already many things going on to help improve and ensure the safety of guests at
a pool or beach, but it will never be enough until every swimming place has good
and well trained lifeguards.
In Jeff Ellis Management, founded
2004, passing the training is no easy task. If someone thinks they can walk in
there and wing the job, they can turn around and leave. While on the job, we
are randomly tested with manikins and people fake drowning. We have ten seconds
to see them and twenty seconds to render aid. This is possible because of our
ten second scanning patterns that we use, always moving our heads and checking,
and scanning with our arms every five minutes. We practice our lifeguard skills
such as rescue types, CPR, first aid, and even guest services skills for up to
four hours every month. At random, we are audited while on the job.
Ellis and Associates, another
company owned by the same person as Jeff Ellis Management, was founded in 1983. This company does hundreds of thousands of pools and beaches all around the
world. They are ranked one of the best lifeguard companies in the world.
Lifeguard awareness is being spread
throughout the globe, but it still remains an unpopular topic among society.
What needs to happen is for people to be as aware of drownings as much as well
trained lifeguards are. The word needs to be put out to the public to see the
lifeguards when they go swimming, to be aware of what risk they may be putting
themselves at by getting in the water, and most of all, be able to correctly
judge the lifeguards, not only for themselves, but for their friends and loved
ones.
What should be looked for in a
lifeguard:
--Scanning; visibly moving their
heads along every part of their zone, especially the walls and corners
--Proper rescue equipment; rescue
tube with strap on and ready, hip pack, a trauma bag with major emergency
equipment, and a backboard for pulling people safely out of the water. This
equipment should be found somewhere near the water.
--No cell phones or other
distractions near by
--No fiddling around or goofing off;
feet ready to jump in at any moment
--Not talking to anyone for more
than a minute
--They deliver good, solid, and
unsterstandable answers to any questions
--Drinking water is at hand
If someone would like to go further, ask management any
questions:
--Do you
test your lifeguards?
--How often
do your lifeguards change stands?
--How often
are the lifeguards required to renew their licenses?
--What
company are your guards trained by?
--Are your
guards audited?
--How often
do they practice their guarding skills such as rescuing methods and
CPR?
One may say
that it costs a lot of money to hire a well trained and disciplined company
that is also more expensive. According to the NCI (National Cancer Institute),
$5 to 6 billion is being spent on cancer research per year. I have nothing
against cancer research and am in all favor of money being invested in it, but
why can not money like that be raised and invested in places to hire better
lifeguards, or spent on lifeguard companies to be able to charge less for
contracts?
One may
argue that you get what you pay for, and this is true to take into
consideration with almost anything else. But with lives at stake, there is no
excuse. One company may cost more than another, but one company may keep a lot
more people safe than the other.
The job also pays in many other
ways. I personally make nine dollars an hour which is seventy five cents higher
than the minimum wage in Illinois .
The amount of work that my coworkers and I put into the job, we could be fairly
paid a good fifteen dollars an hour. But the responsibility and immense amount
of experience that comes with the job is worth much more.
One thing that can be stronger than
money is the power in the voices of a crowd. The more people who come out and
protest against poor lifeguarding, the better. Towns and pools will do
everything they can to hire better lifeguards if enough voices are heard.
The reality of a lifeguard’s true
duties needs to be known to everyone. If a lifeguard is on duty, there is very
little excuse for a drowning. They are there to protect the lives of the people
in the water. The fight for better lifeguards should never end until the yearly
number of drownings is reduced greatly.
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