Tonight was the final exam for my lifeguarding class. I passed. But geez, what a time suck that class was. I wish I hadn't let my previous lifeguarding certification lapse. Having done so meant I needed to take the whole thing over again. It took 30 hours, 5 hours a night over the past 6 nights. But now I have my lifeguarding card, my first aid card, and my CPR/FRP AED card, as well as my WSI card. If I really wanted to make aquatics my career, I'd be set... (I did all this so I could teach.)
It was weird being in a classroom, learning something other than law. I didn't really know what to do with my brain. It was a different kind of learning. Plus water was involved. Law classes don't usually involve buoyancy. Or the threat of drowning.
I've been taking these courses since 1989. Over the years the Red Cross has changed its curriculum, as well as its mind about how best to save people. Which makes things very confusing for me, because after they've pounded it into my head "DO IT THIS WAY" it's difficult for me to now overwrite that information with the new instructions, "DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE!!! Do it THIS way!"
In some ways the changes might be an improvement. Better equipment is available, and some of the new techniques might be safer (particularly for the rescuer). But I'm not entirely sure all these changes are for the better. For one thing, I used to know how to rescue someone when no ring buoy was available. I knew how to grab them, I knew how to level them off, and I knew how to swim with them back to safety. Now, all the rescues require ring buoys. Which is great if you work at a properly equipped pool. But kind of sucks if you happen to see someone drowning in some other body of water not at a swim front. Should such a situation arise I have no duty to try to rescue them (at least if I'm not in Vermont...), but, if I thought I could do it without danger to myself, I might like to try. With my 10-15 years old knowledge I have the skills to do it, but the new lifeguard trainees do not.
(Side note: the old courses also used to emphasize that rescues should not be attempted if they would pose a risk to the rescuer. That admonition hardly exists in the current course, and in fact certain skills were taught for which I have serious doubts about their safety, were they attempted. For instance, a multiple-victim rescue with just one guard if both victims are adults seems like a recipe for disaster. There just is not enough buoyancy in a ring buoy to properly support three people, at least two of whom are panicked. It seems likely that at least one victim would try to climb on the guard, thereby risking his or her drowning as well. There should be at least two guards for this rescue, but the Red Cross didn't teach us how to do that.)
In fact there's a lot of useful knowledge that the new lifeguards haven't learned. The Red Cross has really dumbed a lot of stuff down. It seems to be a course designed to prepare 16 year olds for their first summer jobs, not 31 year old law students who are going to see right through it. But it used to be much more thorough in its curriculum. The first aid component, for example, was much more robust. Other than some topical discussion of some conditions and basic treatments, this week we did bandages and made slings. We didn't even make splints with the slings, like we used to. The first aid skills, like the lifeguarding, seem to require that we be at a properly-equipped facility. If anyone should happen to need first aid anywhere else, too bad.
Which makes me wonder what I'm supposed to do with all this knowledge that's been stuffed into my head over the years. The Red Cross now stresses the legalities of lifeguarding, including in the curriculum lessons on what constitutes negligence, abandonment, duty to rescue, etc. The overall instruction seems to be that if you perform your skills properly as you are trained, you won't have problems with liability. But it raises the real problem of what happens when you have lots of training, like me. Am I obligated to limit my rescuing skills to only what was covered in this latest course? What happens when those skills come up short and I need to draw on the old ones to get the job done?
I used to think that if I learned the law I would feel better about how all this works, because I'd understand the law so it wouldn't feel so scary. But that hasn't happened at all. Because I do understand the law, because I can understand how plausible lawsuits can so easily be plucked out of the air and served onto well-intentioned, helpful, but legally-vulnerable people, I find it all the more terrifying. Why would I want to be a lifeguard? It just doesn't seem to be worth the risk.
Technically posted 5/21. Date stamp applies to when post was written.