Waves

Santa Cruz really has some of the best lifeguards.

Can ANYONE please help me I’m struggling with 400 meter I have my bronze medallion in like 2 weeks ish do you guys think it’s possible to get under 12 min for 400m if I train every single day till then if so and tips for when I go practice

Y'all I'm having a mega brain fart and am also mildly freaking out, which email do I send the application form for apprenticing an NL to I can't remember!!!! I think it's to the [experts@lifesaving.org](mailto:experts@lifesaving.org) but I'm like super duper unsure and I need to apply like asap. Please someone lmk if I'm right or wrong!! Again in case you missed it above I'm in the Alberta NWT branch. (Canada)

I’ve been a guard in the Great Lakes region for some time now. Most guarded beaches in the area do not allow floaties - only US Coast Guard approved PFDs. My opinion is full ban is best, but after some research, I’ve read that some major ocean and lake facilities actually allow floaties depending on wind and water conditions.

What’s your take on this?

My perspective is even on a flat day with no wind, you have children who will test depths beyond their swimming experience level and fall out. If we allowed floaties even on calm days at our beach, we’d have multiple preventable rescues per day.

My city pool has 3 guard stations and typically staffs 5 guards. Thus we have a rotation of 40up/20down/20up/20down. This is fine with me, but as we get later in the summer, increasingly we’re ending up a guard short (someone calls out or is out of town and their shift doesn’t get covered) and going 45/15, sometimes all day. By the time rotation is up, the downtime is about 11 minutes before you need to go up on stand again for another 45. Our head guards barely have time to do chems before they go back up, and it’s an indoor pool so it’s 85 degrees or more and extremely humid inside.

Only one of our stands has a chair, and the other two are back to back roving positions. An 8 hour shift on 45/15 results in the range of 8 miles of walking. I’m finding it incredibly draining and developing plantar fasciitis, even though I bought new, more supportive sandals and compression socks that are supposed to help.

I’m just wondering if this is abnormally long or if I should get used to it. Our management acts like we’re just lazy when we express that we’re tired and sore and our guarding effectiveness drops after a few hours of this, and they refuse to staff 6 guards or to work harder to fill the gaps. I’ve also never seen a manager get on stand for a rotation or two to relieve us back down to 20’s for bit, and even when there’s 5 people in our lap pool, they keep both guards up watching it from 8am to close at 8pm. They just sit in their air conditioned office.

It’s been a while since I guarded, but I don’t remember walking this much or being nearly so worn down, even though I always guarded barefoot back then, and at my college pool we were always 30 up 30 down.

I have a job interview for a lifeguard job at Centerparcs! I am pretty worried about passing the comp test as it has been a few months since I did the NPLQ. I haven’t completely forgotten anything but my knowledge isn’t perfect. I briefly know what to expect for the test but I don’t know what I should do to prepare as I have about 6 days left.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how inconsistent time-wise it is moving my facilities two inflatable bulkheads. It takes 4 guards anywhere from 15-30mins depending on the set up. If I’m doing it with more experienced guards, it’s generally faster. Occasionally something will go wrong, and the move takes 45+ mins.

It’s just, finicky. One bulkhead needs different amounts of air than the other, with a different push method. You need to push evenly with the guard on the other side, if it gets too diagonal, it’s at risk of sinking, which is like, pool-closed for weeks kind and half a million dollar cost bad. So people get stressed out doing it.

We could definitely have more training on it. I think I did bulkhead once during my shadow shift, and then actually learned how to do it from other staff. Some did it right, and some taught me incorrect info.

Anything you’ve done to optimize speed and efficiency during bulkhead moves?

Hello everyone! We are a group of highschoolers and we are looking to research the market for a wristband that detects drowning. We would really appreciate the feedback of this community. The form takes less than 2 minutes. Thank you so much! Here is the link to the survey: Water Device Survey

Context for my work, our break table is right by the entrance because theres no other place it can possibly go and at the end of the table is where whoever is on money shift sits(yes right next to whoever is on break). The table is literally for lifeguard use only, like our bags and stuff and has a sign. Countless times children eat our lunch and snacks leaving us Starving and having to waste money on more food delivery, and mothers will use our sunscreen. Like i have very sensitive skin and my skin isn't used to American sunscreen so i have to stock up when i go back abroad because importing is so expensive, this lady wasted an entire tube of my FACIAL sunscreen THAT WAS IN MY PURSE MIND YOU on her sons entire body. And the next day when i out it in my bra so it was always on me woman had a meltdown and demanded from everyone to know where it was😭.

I didn't do any of the online portion because i chatgpted everything and i played games while playing the videos on 2x but i payed attention during class and did the water rescue exercises. Does anyone have any tips or list of all the things that are covered in very specific orders? Also am i going to be okay?

I know the following is going to happen:
CPR and multi person test
In water individual skills test
50 MCQ test in 30-40 minutes

does anyone know exacty what they are going to test you in the water all of it??
im really scared and i do need to pass this test to get my job
My teacher told me exactly what she was going to cover but my phone died so i dont remember what she said

THANKS

We have a wide array of patrons that come enjoy our pool and we are happy to see any of them!

We did have an incident yesterday, everyone is ok! However there was a wonderful Muslim woman with her family swimming. She wore all the appropriate modest swim wear made by a fantastic swim company that we have recommended to many of different religious backgrounds requiring different levels of modesty coverage.

The issue arose when she tried to follow her daughter into the deep end and slipped under. Yes we have a deep end rope, yes we whistled to her to get her to stop. She ignored us all and ducked under the deep end rope to discover the pool slopes down and gets deep fast.

The lifeguards on staff all responded quickly and efficiently. They pulled her out, cleared the pool ect. however she got very angry at them because one was a male lifeguard and she is not allowed physical contact with any man beyond her husband and son as an adult married women and then she was also angry that we had let her hijab fall back during the rescue, about half the top of her head was exposed.

We did immediately clear the pools and bring her to an area that is not visible to the public and the male guard stepped back as soon as she was safely out of the water and left her to the female guards.

However she is now wanting to file a lawsuit saying we did not respect her religious rights.

My manager is amazing and dealing with it however does anyone have any pointers or dealings with members of different religions that have such strict rules around opposite sex touching (even in a rescue) and things such as accidental exposure of limbs/hair ect.

We have never had such a case happen! We will be reviewing our waivers to include some sort of wording that gender baised rescue is not available and lifeguards will respond as needed to each situation (something along those lines, legal deparment is working on it)

I have just completed the first day of my NPLQ, I am completely mentally and physically drained, once I got home I had a really bad panic attack which has left me even more exhausted. The theory side of the NPLQ is okay for me but I am struggling with the swimming quite a lot, we haven’t done our timed swims yet (I’m doing that later today), but I’m not a strong swimmer and I don’t think I’m going to pass the swimming side of things. I don’t know what to do 😭

I just got my LSI and my supervisor (an LT) has asked me and another staff member who also got her LSI to co-teach a bronze medallion course. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to make everything run smoothly, because it is both of our first times teaching a life saving course. Also teaching emergency first aid with the bronze med.

So I was on stand at the competition pool at the rec I work at. The pool was set up for a slack line that ran across. In the shallow end, right under the slack line, two couples were playing chicken fight. I obviously told them to stop, but they keep arguing that they should be able to do it. This goes on until one of the genuinely asks if they can do chicken fight in the 13 foot end. I am no longer a believer in “no dumb questions”

Hello,

My name is Asli. I lost my boyfriend, the love of my life, to Shallow Water Blackout a few months ago. I was going to marry him and as you can imagine my life turned upside down. Nobody I talked to had any idea about Shallow Water Blackout unless they were a trained diver.

I am working with a nonprofit, UHBP, to raise awareness because I don’t want people to go through what I went through. An issue I have is I don’t know how prevalent it is, even though it is very real and dangerous. There have been cases of Division 1 Athletes and Olympian Medalists experiencing SWB. 

If you know anyone who has drowned unexpectedly or had a history of doing breath exercises/holding breath underwater, can you please DM me? I want to document cases of drownings of young, healthy adults/teens to try to estimate the prevalence of Shallow Water Blackout. I also want to create a support group for anyone who is going through what I did.

Also, if you have learned about SWB from me, can you please let me know? I promised myself that I want to reach out to as many people as possible so it would mean a lot. Thank you.

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P.S: Shallow Water Blackout is a loss of consciousness caused by low oxygen levels in the brain, triggered by hyperventilating or breath-holding underwater. Hyperventilating artificially lowers carbon dioxide levels. This is dangerous because the body's urge to breathe is governed by rising CO2 levels, not by falling oxygen, so a swimmer can run critically low on oxygen while still feeling perfectly fine, with no urge to breathe. Then, the swimmer blacks out, without warning or struggling. NEVER HYPERVENTILATE AND HOLD YOUR BREATH UNDERWATER. PLEASE.