Recap Of My 1st Lifeguarding Class (In Honor Of Lifeguard Appreciation Day Coming Up)
I figure I don’t need to remind anyone here that National Lifeguard Appreciation Day is coming up this Saturday, and because of that, this blog I wrote 5 years ago is getting an honorary copy paste today. “Why not Saturday?” Because you’re not gonna click this on a Saturday.
I’m becoming a lifeguard this summer because it’s about time I give back to my community. Also because my buddy manages a pool that’s willing to pay me a decent amount of cash. The job is already mine, all I have to do is get certified first. Getting your certification requires attending three 9 hour lifeguarding classes from 9AM-6PM, all on Saturday mornings. Life-saving classes seem like an iffy thing to attend hungover but we won’t know until we try. I sign up for the course and they explain online that on day one I will have to partake in the following:
-A 300 yard swim (non-stop)
-A 2 minute tread without using my arms
-A 30 yard swim to retrieve a 10 lb. object at the bottom of the deep end without goggles, a 30 yard swim back with said object only using my legs, then exiting the pool without using a ladder all to be performed in under a minute 40.
Kind of a bummer that they make you sign up for the class before mentioning this. My buddy led me to believe I was just gonna have to learn CPR then do a couple laps in the pool after. And I guess it’s on me for thinking life resuscitation courses would be easy, but the thing is that this pool that I now might be working at is a small private one in an apartment complex. Meaning that I knew I wasn’t gonna have to be doing marine shit there all summer. However, the monkey shortly stopped clapping its cymbals in my head and I realized that obviously these universal lifeguarding courses are gonna be the same whether you’re guarding a kiddie pool or an ocean. I still think I’m gonna pass the tests, but there’s no way things won’t get interesting.
1st Day of Lifeguarding School
Today is training day. I get to the YMCA late for being early at 9:00 AM. A lady walks up to me while I’m checking in at the front desk and says, “you must be Daniel, I’m your lifeguarding teacher.” Her knowing my name is Daniel indicates that I’m going to be the only boy in this class. Really should have worked on my lifeguard bod before this. The teacher then leads me to a classroom where another rising lifeguard is waiting. A 16 year-old girl named Avigail. The teacher says that we’re waiting on one more girl and then we’ll get started.
The final class member eventually walks in and it’s a young Asian American girl named Beth. It turns out that her and Avigail know each other from taking swim lessons together a while back. This is a great ice breaker for the two of them and makes me an even odder man out than already being a 21 year-old guy in a class with two 15-16 year-old girls.
Class Time
The teacher says that for the first 3 hours of the day we’ll be in the classroom reading out loud from the text book. During this time we’ll all be taking turns, switching off paragraphs. Beth leads off and has some trouble pronouncing “defibrillation.” It’s a tricky word, I’ll give it to her, but it’s still gonna affect the grade I’m secretly giving her. Avigail reads next and has a couple of unnecessary pauses, overall B+ reading. As the two of them were reading I started to review my paragraph in order to deliver an unreal read. Veteran shit. I notice the word “resuscitate” and pronounce it a couple times in my head to prepare for battle against it. I also notice that my paragraph contains a sentence in parenthesis. The worst. I never know if I should read the parenthesis, but I risked it all. I did a pretty decent job on the rest of my readings for the day, now it’s time to get physical.
I’m not making this next part up for story telling purposes. I almost wanted to exclude it because this blog is already running long enough.
We all go by the pool and our teacher comes up to us and says there has been a “Code Brown.” A Code Brown in the lifeguarding business means that someone has taken a shit in the pool. In this case, it was a little kid during the swimming lessons that take place the class prior. Our teacher tells the three of us to report back tomorrow at 9AM again, which sucks because the Mayweather/Pacquiao fight is tonight and I’m definitely drinking for it.
The Next Day
This isn’t the worst hangover I’ve ever had, but I still definitely shouldn’t be this hungover for a class teaching me how to revive people back to life. I’m not Sunday scared, but I’m still shot enough to the point that I threw up from brushing my teeth earlier (second hardest thing when you’re hungover in the morning.) Needless to say, a 300 yard swim should be a good idea.
The 300 Yard Swim
All three of us are doing the swim at the same time. It’s not a race, but obviously we’ll all be treating it as such. The whistle blows and we’re off. Avigail takes the lead, I’m in 2nd, Beth is trailing directly behind me, mere inches away from getting an accidental kick in the head. I’m straight Fred Flintstone motor boating it right in her face. She’s afraid to even speed up because she knows she’s gonna get buried by one of my feet. For the next 30 seconds I give it my all in order to pass Avigail. I don’t care if I lose to girls in anything, but I’m not going to if I don’t have to. I eventually steal 1st place and become EXHAUSTED immediately after my adrenaline shuts down.
We still have 100 yards to go and I’m basically about to drown. I managed to swallow about half of the shallow end last time around and threw up a decent amount underwater at one point, which wasted some precious breaths. I’m now in 3rd place and don’t even know if I’ll qualify. My teacher even notices my struggle and says, “You got this Daniel!” which is usually what someone says when the person they’re talking to doesn’t got this. I pretty much doggy-paddled the rest of the way and passed with a self-graded C- (had them in the 1st half.) I’m probably the most tired I’ve been in 4 years, so the 2 minute tread without using my arms should go well.
The 2 Minute Tread Without Using Your Arms
Let me say this first — you don’t really know how awkward it is to swim with your arms behind your back, only with your legs, and in the same spot, until someone forces you to do it. Imagine getting handcuffed and tossed into the middle of a lake and only using your legs to keep you alive for 2 minutes. That’s exactly what this is like. Had I practiced or not have been drunk still then I may have had better luck, but I just couldn’t figure out a rhythm to it. I was essentially stomping my feet under water like I was throwing a temper tantrum for 120 consecutive seconds, each leg competing for its life.
I’m old news right now, but in the mean time Beth and Avi have been over here having a conversation amongst themselves and even LAUGHING at some points during it. There is nothing anyone could say that would make me laugh right now. I somehow passed this portion of training camp, but you couldn’t blow me to do it again.
Side Note—I could drown right now and not care, but there’s a fun caveat here: the lifeguard company that I may or may not be employed by purposely didn’t hire any other lifeguards who applied based on my buddy’s recommendation for me. For some reason my friend was so confident that I’d pass these tests that he basically put his own job on the line (and because he wanted someone cool to work with for the summer, humble brag.) So now I have to become a certified lifeguard or I’ll be letting multiple people down. I know future courses won’t be tougher than today’s, so I just have to power through this last torture method and we’ll be good.
Retrieving the 10 lb. Dumbbell
I tell the girls that I NEED to go last and they totally agree. For this portion we have to swim from the shallow end to the deep end, dive 9 feet under water, grab a 10lb dumbbell, then bring it back to the shallow end in under 1 minute and 40 seconds. Even under my current state I feel like a minute 40 is a gracious amount of time to swim 60-70 yards, but I’ve also been wrong several times today already. Beth and Avigail go first and both take a solid minute and 20 seconds to do this, which is bad news bears for my confidence. I walk to the edge of the diving board and almost want to walk of shame back down the ladder. But I give it a dying effort.
I dive in, hustle to the deep end, drop 9 feet under water, and (since we can’t use goggles) I’m struggling hard to find the dumbbell. I smoked a ton of drunk cigarettes last night so my lungs are screaming right now. After being under water for about 25 seconds, I manage to find it and begin clawing towards the surface. Once I emerge I let out the biggest gasp maybe ever. Swimming back to the shallow end with this 10 lb. dumbbell and some new heartbeats wasn’t highlight reel footage, but I did it and that was my only goal for the day. So I passed all three of the tests, but it was a massive reality check. Really looking forward to the next two Saturdays.
Stay tuned for next time when we’ll be practicing real rescues on real people.
*We will not be staying tuned because I’m not a lifeguard anymore, but a good lifeguard is never off-duty so if we wanna get technical I am. Thank you to all those who have guarded and those who continue to guard, you are appreciated.