The American Red Cross Lifeguarding course aims to provide entry-level lifeguard participants with the knowledge and skills to prevent, recognize, and respond to aquatic emergencies and provide care for breathing and cardiac emergencies, injuries, and sudden illnesses until emergency medical services personnel take over.
Lifeguarding Day 1:
On the first day of Lifeguarding, the students had a full day in the pool. We started the pre-tests: a 350-yard swim, immediately followed by 2 minutes of treading water, hands-free, and then 200 more yards to finish up. After everyone finished the pre-test, we were taught some different rescue techniques. We learned the proper approach to rescue an active and passive drowning victim from both the front and back. To finish the day, we learned how to save a submerged victim from the bottom of the pool and worked as a team to get the victim out of the pool safely.
Lifeguarding Day 2:
Today, we spent the morning in the classroom discussing different situations to help with first aid and prepare us for the afternoon in the pool. We learned about how Lifeguards use Emergency Action Plans (EAPs) to handle aquatic emergencies effectively, including knowing roles, responsibilities, and emergency response procedures. We also learned the basics of CPR. In the pool, we worked on spinal victim rescues individually and how to work as a team to extract a victim from the water using a backboard.
Lifeguarding Day 3:
Today, we started off the day by getting our lifeguarding packs. The packs included resuscitation masks for infants and adults, gloves, and a whistle. Then, we began practicing our CPR skills on infants and adults. After understanding how to do compressions and breaths correctly, we moved into working as a team in different situations to save an infant or adult. Once we had mastered our CPR skills, we moved to the pool and continued to work on rescues that involved a spinal injury victim.
Lifeguarding: Day 4
Today, we started the day by going through some first aid scenarios that could happen while on the job as a lifeguard to ensure we understood the proper procedure to handle them. We then took our open-water written test, which everyone passed! After finishing the written test, we had some lunch and went in the water to do some submerged victim saves where we worked as a team to get the victim out of the water and provide CPR. We finished the day with a timed test, where we had to swim to the deep end, get a brick from the bottom of the pool, and then swim on our backs with the brick on our chest until we returned to the shallow end.
Lifeguarding: Day 5
On our last day of lifeguard training, we had to do another team test that involved scanning the water in our zone of coverage as well as demonstrating how to properly switch with a person coming to take over our duty. After we all demonstrated we knew how to scan and make a switch, we had our last test before becoming a lifeguard; a 50 question test to evaluate if we had retained all the information learnt during the week and we were prepared to become lifeguards. Everyone passed, and we are now lifeguards! For all their hard work this week, we went out to eat at Chiptole to celebrate everyone becoming a lifeguard.
Credits:
Created with an image by hooyah808 - "red rescue"