LIFE guarding

The date was August 18th, 2022, and the workday was coming to an end as it was roughly 5:20.

At this point in the summer, our lifeguard staff was a little understaffed since lots of people

already went back to college, so the pool was scheduled to close at 6pm. All was normal

throughout the day; kids were swimming, parents were relaxing, and a child with autism with the

name George was going down the slide as he usually did. The difference on this day was that

when George went to the top of the 35-foot slide, instead of going down the slide when the

attendant said “GO”, he climbed over the metal railing, dead-hung from the railing, and fell 35

feet onto concrete pavement.

For the last four summers, I have been working at the Garden City Pool as a lifeguard.

This is the local town pool that is considered to be a “Public Pool”, but in reality, you need to

pay a hefty subscription price every year to gain access to the facilities. There are three different

pool areas in the facility including the Kid’s Pool, Main Pool, and Adult Pool. The Kid and Adult

Pools have age restrictions as to who can swim in them. For the Kid’s Pool, you need to be under

the age of ten; and for the Adult Pool you need to be over the age of eighteen. On the other hand,

everyone is allowed to swim in the Main Pool and go down one of the two 35-foot-high slides.

These two slides have a height minimum of 42-inches in order to ride them, but no age

restriction. With this being said, the slides are a very popular attraction for people of all ages.

The deepest points of each pool are 8-inches for the Kid’s Pool, 5-feet for the Main-Pool, and 6-

feet 6-inches for the Adult Pool. Compared to the surrounding towns local pools, these are very

low numbers as most pools have their deepest points around 8-9 feet in their deep ends. Some of

the rules around the pool deck and in the water are as follows: no running, no diving, no hoisting

someone to sit on top of your shoulders, only one person down the slide at a time, and to always
go feet first and on your back down the slide. Since there are so many rules surrounding the

entire pool, this makes it a very safe facility especially since the lifeguard certification

requirements are very hard to complete. There are two main certifications that every lifeguard in

Nassau County, New York must obtain before being hired anywhere as a lifeguard. The first is to

be Red Cross CPR and First-Aid Certified, which needs to be re-certified every year. Secondly

you need to pass the Nassau County Lifeguard Test which includes a timed 200-meter and 50-

meter swims along with a written test. With my experience working as a lifeguard at this facility

for the last four years, I used to be very confident in saying that emergencies are extremely rare

to occur.

The sun was shining very brightly, the smell of sunscreen was in the air, and business

was as usual at the Garden City Pool on this particular August evening. At the 20-minute-mark

during each hour the Lifeguards switch from on break to one of the stands guarding the water

below. The switching between stands usually goes very smoothly as when your replacement gets

to the stand you are sitting at, they watch the water while you climb down the roughly 6-foot-

high stand, and when they climb the stand, you watch the water until they are fully set and

watching the water. The time was 5:18pm, and I had just left the staff break room to being my

walk over to stand 5 when I heard the first long whistle blow. A long whistle means that there is

an emergency and that all lifeguards must gather the backboard, AED, First-Aid Kit, and rush

immediately over to the location of the emergency. The location is easy to determine once you

exit the break room due to the fact that when a long whistle blows, all other lifeguards on stand

must stand up, blow there whistles, and point in the direction of the emergency. Since I was

already close to the location of the emergency, I could hear one of my fellow lifeguards yelling

“George jumped off the slide” and “Grab the backboard!”. I instantly knew that what was
coming next was going to be a very horrific scene that I was about to arrive to. With this in mind,

right when I heard the long whistle, I began a dead sprint towards the emergency sight since I

was closer to the sight than I was to grabbing any of the required materials to help treat the

victim. The phrase of “dead sprint” is an understatement in this situation as this was the fastest, I

have ever ran in my entire life. The total distance was probably 250 feet on concrete and when I

began my sprint, I knew to kick off my flip flops when I began to run as they would only slow

me down from getting to the emergency. Whilst I was running my sunglasses on my face fell to

the ground, but I did not stop. Once I was about to turn the corner and have a full view of how

bad the situation was, a quick thought brushed through my mind that I may be arriving to a dead

body since the height of the fall was roughly 35-feet and the impact spot was onto concrete. This

thought did not change my actions though as I turned the corner and saw one of the youngest

lifeguards on staff arriving slightly before me and clearly not knowing what to do. Once I could

see what the situation was, I saw a sight that I would never wish upon my worst enemy. There

was lots of blood and 2 clearly shattered legs on George. Instantly my training kicked in and I

began to brace the child’s neck as I did not know if he had suffered a spinal cord injury or not. I

than told the younger lifeguard to hold the boy’s arms since he was trying to move around.

George was trying to move around because he has severe autism and did not comprehend at the

time what was going on. There was lots of blood on the ground coming from all different

locations of his body and getting onto my arms and shirt as I attempted to keep his head from

moving. All of this from me arriving on the scene to a group of roughly 10 lifeguards arriving

with medical equipment was about 15 seconds apart from each other since I was already close to

the scene and the other lifeguards had to obtain the medical resources. Since I was already

bracing the boys head, I could not switch with anyone else since if I removed my hold of his
head/neck, any movement could be catastrophic to a spinal cord injury. A towel was wrapped

quickly around the boy’s head for about 5 seconds than removed to see if there was any bleeding

coming from his head and luckily there was not. The next steps were to stabilize his head/neck

with a neck brace and stop bleeding in any way that we could. Once the ambulance and

paramedics arrived, they quickly took over the scene and asked us what had happen and what we

had done so far so that they could begin care. They then asked for some space and for only the 4

head lifeguards to be present since they are the most experienced and have the most power in the

facility. My next movement was to slowly move away from the boy as the neck brace was put

on. As I am slowly walking back to the first aid station to clean myself off, one of the

paramedics gave me a “good job kid” and continued with the stretcher towards the sight. After

hearing this, I look down to see my forearms almost completely covered in blood and the bottom

of my shirt stained with blood. I was still in shock from what had just happened so I could not

fully comprehend what had happened as I walked past the crowd, of about 100 people behind the

barrier set up, with a blank stare on my face and no words to say. Eventually I got to the first aid

station and began to clean up the blood from my arms and I put my shirt into a plastic bag since

blood was stained onto it. I than just sat down in a chair with no emotions and in pure shock of

what had just happened. Once the ambulance left with George and his father, the pool closed

down for the day and the head lifeguards called a meeting with everyone on the staff. They said

how we did such a great job and that hopefully he was going to be ok.

Leaving the facility, the air was silent as no one was talking and just got into their cars

and drove home. This may have been the only time I had never listened to music on my drive

home from work. I still had no emotions as the pure shock factor was still taking over my body.

Once I arrived home and went inside, my dad asked me how work was today and that is when all
of my emotions his me and I began to hysterically cry. Instantly he knew something was wrong

but I asked to be alone for a little and took about 10 minutes to just get myself controlled enough

to have a conversation with him about what happened. Once I began the conversation the

emotions began to flow again but I decided to power through and tell him what had happened.

The reason why the emotions hit me when I saw my dad at home was because this event showed

me how valuable life is. Seeing and hearing the father of George cry and yell hit me extremely

hard when the first person in my family I saw was my dad. I could not imagine what would

happen if I ever lost him and I realized how quickly one’s life can change in the blink of a

moment. Life is a lot more valuable than I had previously thought about and it had occurred to

me within those last 3 hours about how precious a life really is.

The connection that I gained with some of my coworkers after this event will continue to

be a very special relationship that I will be able to cherish for a very long time. For the first 3

years of working as a lifeguard, there was never a serious event that had me gain a deep

connection with my fellow lifeguards until that day. Once the next day of work started, the sense

of community that was gained for all the lifeguard on staff was one in which we could not break.

We all realized that we would communicate through blowing our whistles for a certain length of

time or a certain number of times to communicate with others and try to keep people safe. This is

what we realized to be our form of communication during work since we are so far apart on the

stands, we cannot talk to each other.

This event taking place during a random day in the summer of going into my freshman

year of college really changed the course of my life for the better. The realization of how

valuable a life is and how quickly it can just be taken from either someone you love or yourself

is a terrifying thought. Also, the realization of how people can communicate in different
communities through languages that aren’t speech. In all, the sheer fact of how fast a life can be

taken from this earth will affect my life from that day onwards.