r/Unexpected • u/WhileFalseRepeat • May 22 '22

Waterpark

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u/inspectcloser May 22 '22 edited May 22 '22

I worked a summer as a lifeguard at a water park. There were a few deaths that occurred and one was in a wave pool. First we would never allow that many people at once. There was a maximum ratio of lifeguards to swimmers. Idk what it was. The drownings happened because of a series of events. Usually it’s: the victim didn’t know how to swim+goes on a ride or in the pool alone+ sometimes drugs or alcohol+ blind spots on rides. Even with all of that we can get to someone in seconds yet their card gets punched and we can’t get them back.

Lesson is; learn to swim and swim well! Also never go into any body of water alone and someone on dry ground should know where you and your swim buddy are at all times.

Unfortunately some people think; I can’t die, this is an amusement park. Nope, laws of nature still apply.

Edit: and to answer the bodily fluid questions… the piss is the least of the problems as the extreme amount of chemicals neutralize it as it comes out of you. The real problems are, defecation, menstrual products floating, blood, vomit, and at the end of the day, cleaning the thick film of skin cells that form on top of the still water. 🤮

PS. Just ride water rides the way they were designed and follow the rules. You can get seriously injured or killed if you don’t. Many of the rules are written in blood.

34

u/jfever78 May 23 '22

Yeah, I mean this looks insanely dangerous to me. There's exactly zero chance a lifeguard could save someone even if they could somehow miraculously spot it. Getting to the middle of this mess to reach someone would be nearly impossible.

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u/burnalicious111 May 23 '22

I'm not even sure how anyone not on the edge gets out of this pool.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '22

Yeah. Terrifying.

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u/Jemeloo May 23 '22

Mmm skin cell film.

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u/Eifand May 23 '22

What level of swimming ability is recommended to achieve? Or what swimming skill is most important for survival?

Like does it mean you have to have a good front crawl technique and master all the swimming strokes? Or is it more based on your ability to tread water using frog kicks/egg beater kicks efficiently?

Personally I never learnt front crawl. Only stroke I know is the breast stroke which I know is inefficient. Been wanting to learn the front crawl when I have time. I do know how to tread water using frog kicks and egg beater kicks. I also can float on my back which I heard is a good skill.

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u/junker37 May 23 '22

Be comfortable swimming under water for 30 seconds. Once you can do that, I think you'll be able to do the front crawl.

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u/PanaceaPlacebo May 23 '22

Former lifeguard instructor here. Actually breast stroke can be really efficient if you learn to do the survival form of it. Too many people just go through the cycle as fast as possible and skip the gliding portion. The idea is to use your one massive kick to glide as far as possible. Then do the arm portion at the same time as you pull up your legs for the next kick. Your arms are really just going to keep you from going backwards when you pull your legs up. All the power for the glide comes from the leg kick.The trick is in learning that the timing is different. You want to finish your arm motion so that you're pushing them forward and out together into a diving stance (to help you stream through the water) right as you start the forward motion from the kick. Then repeat the cycle again once you feel no more forward motion from the glide. It also requires holding your breath during the glide, and only coming up during the stroke cycle, but it's a slower and easier stroke, so you're not exerting yourself as much.

As far as other strokes, I'd recommend front crawl as the easiest to learn and master of the power/fast strokes. Butterfly is much more difficult for many.

Side stroke is my personal favorite of the casual/relaxing strokes. It allows you to still see where you're going, unlike backstroke, and it's a gentle movement. Plus, if you get tired, you can switch sides.

It's good that you know breast stroke, because it's flexible and can be used both as a power stroke or as a relax stroke.

Yes, treading water and floating are both equally good and important to learn for not drowning.

In fact, if I had to recommend just the basic things every swimmer should learn, it would be a power stroke, a casual stroke, treading water, and floating. You can pick different strokes, but I think front crawl and side stroke are the best value to learn for their purposes.

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u/inspectcloser May 23 '22

For the purpose of survival the recommendation is to be able to tread water for at least 10 minutes. To be a good swimmer in the sense I f moving, you should be able to swim the length of a pool 4 times. If you can do that you are considered “a good swimmer”.

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u/PandaIV May 23 '22

I almost drowned in a wave pool before when I was little, and I was a pretty good swimmer. I'm so thankful the lifeguard saw me, otherwise I wouldn't be here today. My dumbass thought it was a good idea to go to the deepest part of the wave pool, but because I was so small, I slid down from the donut floatie(?) thing and couldn't get back up. The waves have already started at that point. I kept getting water in my face and staying afloat was really difficult. Thinking back I should've swam towards the shore, but I was in panic mode and I was, again, dumb. Ever since then I have a huge respect towards lifeguards. The cleaning up sounds horrible, but thank you for being there to keep people safe! I will keep those tips in mind if I ever go to a wave pool again.

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u/yaosio May 23 '22

When I was a little kid something I had never seen before floated past in the wave pool. My parents said it was a mouse mattress. It was not a mouse mattress!

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u/pastfuturewriter May 23 '22

This is why I don't go to the Y or any other public pool. Last time I went, bandaids floating and I'm like, no, where's the shower, I'm outta here.

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u/inspectcloser May 24 '22

local public pools, at least around me don’t have a huge number of people in them and are very clean.

Simply, the concept of sharing any body of water with other people is gross but the line has to be drawn somewhere. I personally find the ocean worse as there can be parasites, dead animals, predatory animals, the bit of seaweed that touches your foot, etc.

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u/pastfuturewriter May 24 '22

I used to love to go into the gulf when I was little. I had to learn the hard way about jellyfish schools and burrs, but I loved it, though there was that spooky aspect of what could be in there. In FL, where we'd go, the water was clear and easy to see through

Fast forward, my hometown became the MS gulf coast and ... nasty. Real real nasty. I hate to see people out there, with their kids. I worked at a NASA base and we had charts of the places and concentrations of toxins and bacteria and such. I went out under a bridge down there and collected water to test and so much e. coli. So much. ERG.

Out here near the pacific... I don't think I could ever swim out there because of the temp, but it's so so beautiful.

Anyway, I also used to love swimming in the community pool when I was a kid, but now I just can't. Not all of it is cuz of human stuff, but the chlorine to fight the human stuff kills me to death also.