A New Appreciation for Lifeguards

With summer coming right around the corner, many Watauga high school students are applying for seasonal jobs to make money over the summer. I am one of these students,and this year I've decided to go into lifeguarding. I didn't expect the life guarding class to be a particularly difficult class but within the first 10 mins of being there, I realized I had made a drastic understatement. We started the class by immediately hoping in the pool and doing the physical part of the test. We were told to swim 12 consecutive laps. That may sound easy,but around lap five, I was panting like a dog. After the strenuous swim, we rested for about five minutes and then went directly back to the pool where we had to tread water for two minutes without the use of our hands. We did physically daunting tasks like that for about an hour,and I started to worry,but then our instructor told us we had finished the fitness exam, and we could begin to learn techniques on how to save people. There are about six different basic techniques that we were taught. We then were sent off with partners to practice. I was paired up with the largest man in the bunch. He was probably 6’4 and slightly overweight. (For those of you who don't know me, I'm not a particularly big dude, I'm 5’10 and around 150 pounds). This was an immediate bummer for me,and the first couple of rescues were a disaster. However as I continued to try, I showed improvement. I learned to use the man's size and weight to my advantage,and I could rescue him with more consistency. I still have two more weeks of lifeguarding class left ,but my advice to anyone else considering entering the profession is to be physically fit and mentally sharp enough to be able to respond quickly to an emergency.