Every year children drown in swimming pools, lakes, baths, rivers, etc. It really breaks my heart to hear or read about this. I’ve been a lifeguard for over 10 years and fully aware of the dangers in swimming pools or any other place that has water. It has always been a big fear that one day someone would drown during my shift. Fortunately I’ve always been alert enough to prevent this.

The one thing that always makes me mad when I read in the newspaper that a child has drowned in a swimming pool is that every one immediately points the finger at the lifeguard. Where was the lifeguard? Why didn’t he pay attention? Why didn’t he perform a rescue, etc? Another comment that people made to me on a regular basis is; “You got yourself a nice job sitting on your ass or just walking around doing nothing!”

People are genuinely surprised when you tell them what you have to do to become a lifeguard. Most people think that you can just grab someone of the street and put him in a swimming pool and let them ‘watch’ the pool. As a lifeguard you learn how to watch a pool, where the dangers are, what to look for, which people you have to keep an extra eye on, etc. You also have to go through a course where you learn how to perform a rescue, first aid, resuscitation, the plant room, water quality, dealing with people, anger management, problem solving, etc.

When you are a qualified lifeguard, most of the time you can prevent a rescue. The job of a lifeguard is not only preventing or performing rescues, but also keeping the order in a swimming pool. It’s almost like being a police officer sometimes. “You are not allowed to dive in the pool because you can break your neck” or “You can not go down the slides backward” or “You have to stay with your child and supervise it” and I can go on an on.

Lifeguards usually don’t get the respect they deserve. They are there to assure that your day in the swimming pool goes smoothly and you have a lot fun. Yet a lot of people don’t listen to the advice a lifeguard gives and when something does go wrong it’s still the lifeguards fault. Fortunately not every one treats a lifeguard like this.

Now where I would like to go with this story is this; whenever I read an article about a child that has drowned, I wonder too where the lifeguard was, but I wonder even more where the parents were.

A lot of times parents ‘dump’ their kids in the swimming pool. It’s cheaper than a babysitter and the parents have an afternoon to themselves. The children have to stay there until an agreed time for when they get picked up. It has happened many times that due to circumstances a child can not continue to swim but the lifeguard can’t get hold of the parents and the child needs to wait for hours before the parents pick them up.

Because this has happened too often most swimming pools have a minimum age where children can visit without supervision. Also children without a swimming diploma without supervision get send home. And to my surprise, when we do send children home because of these rules, we get angry telephone calls from the parents.

It only takes a split second to lose your child out of your sight. When people come into a swimming pool the first thing they do is secure that they have a table and chair they can claim so that they can sit and rest in between the swims. They bring their bags over there; take all the towels out of the bag and all the other stuff they bring. In the meantime they don’t notice that their child couldn’t wait to ‘swim’ and jump in the pool and is struggling to keep their head above water. The parents also didn’t notice/ignored all the signs before they entered the swimming pool to watch their kids and stay within a few meters at all times.

Another example is that parents sit on the chairs at their table and let their kids play in the baby/toddler pool. They think that since the pool is shallow nothing can happen and after all it’s only 5 meters from where they sit. What they don’t realize is that in that split second where they poured themselves a drink, the child climbed out of the pool and walks to another, deeper pool or the child has fallen over and can’t get up.

A lot of times when you ask a parent to supervise their child, the lifeguard gets a cranky remark or comments that their child doesn’t jump in the deep pool, etc. But the fact is that kids don’t see the dangers that we see. A lot of parents do see the dangers and give their kids floaties to wear. I think this is a good thing as long as they keep supervising their child.

What really gets to me is that when parents do give the kids floaties, they think that they don’t have to watch their children anymore. They think that if you have floaties you can’t drown. But that is not the case. They are never 100% safe. On every product it says that you should only use it under supervision. When kids jump in the water there’s a possibility that the floaties come off because of the splash of the water.

In my opinion it is THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARENTS to supervise their children in a swimming pool (and river, lake, bath, ocean, etc.). The responsibility of the lifeguard is to prevent accidents from happening by advising people, making sure the rules are followed, and problem solving. When people ignore the rules or don’t follow up the advice that’s given, that’s usually when accidents happen.

And yes, lifeguards are there to prevent accidents and perform rescues. But it does not have to come that far if parents watched their own kids.

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