[slayed0]

I always assumed my friends who spent their summers lifeguarding had a simple carefree job. I never gave much thought to just how attentive you have to be as a lifeguard. Thanks for putting this into perspective (literally) for the rest of us.

[atourgates]

I spent a few years of high school and college working at a summer camp, mostly as a counsellor. There were lots of great things about it, but being down by or in a lake with a group of 7-10 8-14 year olds was terrifying.

I'd spend every minute counting the kids, making sure none of them were missing. At the camp I worked on, you not only had to worry about actual drownings, but also administrators who would try and "steal" a kid about once a week from unobservant counsellors, then call a waterfront drill where all the lifeguards on staff had to search the entire waterfront for a "missing" camper. Until the drill was over, no-one involved (including the counsellor who had lost their kid, lifeguards wearing masks searching under the docks etc.) knew if it was real, or a drill.

In the 5-summers I worked there, I took it as a point of pride that none of my campers were ever stolen, and I never saw another counsellor have their kid successfully stolen more than once. The shame and terror of spending about 5-minutes thinking, "Oh shit, I might have just let a child die" was a pretty effective motivator.

[GBond]

The steal kids drill sounds quite stressful. Is the goal to train to be attentive always and spot the immediate stealing act or to keep you counting and have a proper reaction?

[ntoronto]

I'll bet it was both.

I was a lifeguard, so I can speak with some authority. Both skills are necessary. Not only do you have to count and track swimmers, but you have to keep mental notes about their abilities, be aware of what they're doing, and imagine possible outcomes so you can identify and react quickly to the actual outcomes. If your attention wanders for too long, especially at a busy place, you can easily lose track of someone. If you lose track of the wrong person, well, buckle up.

Fortunately, there are usually multiple lifeguards on duty with you, you're usually on a strict 10- or 15-minute rotation with them, and one of the stations is the break room. That helps a lot.

Lifeguarding at a camp is at least 5 times more difficult than at a pool, and I suspect that's why they ran drills to keep the lifeguards on their toes. Underwater visibility is usually next to nothing. The lake is usually full of teenage boys. Access to the water is effectively unlimited. There are often a lot of occluders, such as boats and bushy shores.

[atourgates]

The goal of these specific drills was:

1) To keep counsellors attentive to the specific children under their care.

2) To give the lifeguard's the chance to practice their missing child search procedures.

It was stressful, and it was effective.

[mholmes680]

3) if the children are lined up on the shore safe and sound, they're not actually drowning or at risk of drowning.

[dimino]

Having had a similar experience (lifeguard/counselor), I never worried much about the kids at the lake. They had PFDs, they'll float. Swim tests were always my nightmare.

That said, my bosses weren't huge assholes and didn't disappear kids regularly like yours sound like they did. We had drills, but you could tell by the demeanor of the director that it wasn't real.

[atourgates]

I thought it was a really good practice, and didn't feel it was assholeish at all. It's not like having your camper stolen was unavoidable. If there's a lapse in your attention long enough that allows someone to walk up to one of your campers, explain to them what's going on and walk away with them, there's a lapse in your attention long enough for your camper to drown. You're signing up for your job with the primary description of, "Keep these kids safe for a week."

Plus, it wasn't a secret. We all knew it was happening. If all the counsellors down by the waterfront were being attentive and they couldn't steal a camper, one of the admins would just come up to a counsellor and ask us to take one of our kids, and tell us to go report a missing camper to the lifeguard in about 5-minutes.

Now as a parent, I'd much rather send my kid to a camp where the counsellors are terrified of losing my kid, than one where they're not.

[dimino]

I think it's a terrible practice, wholly ineffective, and neighboring on pathological to instill terror into your staff at the prospect of losing a child.

There are many better, more effective ways to ensure you're not going to lose a kid. We did things like count children before/after each activity, run drills at regular (not weekly) intervals, etc.

We also had games where kids were left to run in the forest for multiple hours unaccompanied (variations on capture the flag). The kids loved it, your kid would love it, and the counselors in charge of your kid wouldn't be obsessively paranoid about the exact location of your child at every single moment because that level of attention just isn't necessary.

[grkvlt]

> I think it's a terrible practice, wholly ineffective, and neighboring on pathological to instill terror into your staff

The point of drills that simulate reality effectively is to get you comfortable enough with taking the necessary actions at the required times that you will not have terror instilled in you. This is why armies around the world all do 'live fire' exeercise and so on, and why companies run BAU or DR failover tests.

[dimino]

I know why a drill happens. I also know why they don't actually burn down buildings during fire drills.

[imjared]

Was a waterpark lifeguard during highschool. We went through training every Tuesday night and were all CPR certified. It's a far cry from the lifeguards you see sitting around at neighborhood pools. If I was at the wave pool, I could easily be responsible for watching hundreds of people at any given time both in the water and in my immediate vicinity of the deck (choking? heat stroke?)

The job was sometimes so intense I'd wake up in the middle of the night in a panic because I thought I had forgotten my whistle or someone was having an emergency. Props to anyone who does it. When executed well and carefully, it's not exceptionally hard work but any lapse of judgement for even a moment can lead to disaster.

[robertfw]

> The job was sometimes so intense I'd wake up in the middle of the night in a panic because I thought I had forgotten my whistle or someone was having an emergency.

I had the same waking panics while being a camp counsellor. We'd have 7 day sessions with 3 day breaks in between and quite often those breaks were punctuated with waking up bolt upright to figure out where my kids were. Took a while for that to pass.

Also took a while to remember how to eat slowly (you eat quick, or you don't eat!)