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Lifeguards And Lifesaving (Real)And You Thought It Was Safe To Go Into The Water
Date: 1999/10/17 Agree? Disagree? : Have Your Say Buy Books About This Topic At: Amazon UK Amazon US Send This Article To A Friend: Email It Use Telepathy A lifeguard is a person employed to watch over an area of water and prevent the onset of drowning [1] in anyone swimming in said water. The media, especially the David Hasslehof production Baywatch, would have us believe that all lifeguards are perfect specimens of the human race, fit in both body and mind, with only the welfare of beach or pool-living people on their minds. We are also told that a lifeguard spends his day sitting on a beach occasionally rising to his feet to heroically save whoever last fell from the pier or became involved in a motor-boat crash. While a nice image, this function is actually fulfilled by Lassie the wonder dog (What Lassie? Timmy? Drowning off the coast of California? Woof! Oh.) and most lifeguards are students who work in municipal swimming pools to fund their Saturday expeditions to public bars or night-clubs. In truth the majority of a lifeguard's time will be spent telling teenage children "not to run on the side" or, on an interesting day "not to dive in the shallow end". This is because people rarely do anything as stupid as drowning themselves. A lifeguard might also pass the time by swinging his whistle round like a drum majorette or inventing a new way of casually walking along the side of a pool. A lifeguard might also fulfill other tasks, such as regulating the passage of bathers down a water slide or suffering inane abuse from maladjusted seven-year-olds who `want to marry him'. As well as professional lifeguards (if students could ever be called professionals) there are also a large number of voluntary lifeguards. These `lifesavers' spend their free time learning first aid and swimming skills so that if they ever found someone floundering in a canal or lake they would be able to help them get out of difficulties. Some of these lifesavers also form clubs and enter lifesaving competitions, to see who is the best at saving lives. You might well ask how it is possible to have a lifesaving competition. They are very simple events, a group of volunteers will pretend to drown in an appropriate location (for instance, a lake) and teams of two will then have to rescue as many of them as possible in ninety seconds with a judge awarding points for special flair. There might also be towing races and rope throwing rallies. Of course all lifeguards or life savers are highly trained, so for once it should be safe to go into the water. A lifeguard is also someone who is very likely to know where their towel is, making them a rather hoopy bunch of froods.
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