My response to Yahoo article

I have a yahoo email account that I use just for companies and because there are a few companies I use daily I use yahoo for my home page. Which means that every day I'm sucked into scrolling through the headlines and eventually into the stories. Lately, I've been thinking I'll write a blog entry regarding the misleading headlines that lure me into a story. Over and over again I see a headline that promises one thing, yet the story is regarding something "close", but reneges on the promise. Because I didn't write down the ones that annoyed me most and since my memory sucks, I had decided to do just that for my planned article.

This week, however, I got distracted from my goal by clicking on Ironic 'Lifeguard' Pic Has Internet Freaking Out: 'There is Somebody Drowning in the Background'. Of course, haven chosen lifeguarding as my career for many years that headline jumped out at me, as did the picture, and I clicked on it. A girl wearing a cut off lifeguard hoodie stood in front of the ocean posing in a set of four different pictures with the caption, "Saving Lives". I knew when I clicked on the picture that she wasn't a real lifeguard, and I knew too that I would most likely come away annoyed, but needing some distraction from my novel, I went there.

First, let me say that I saw the humor in it. The fake lifeguard girl is posing in four photos making faces. In three of the photos a small boy plays in the water behind her. She apparently has no knowledge of the child and the irony is pointed out by her followers especially since in the fourth picture the child is missing, replaced by a woman looking out at the ocean. Secondly, the comments directed at her are funny, and she defends herself saying the kid was just playing in the water, and then pokes fun of herself later in front of a sign that states, "No lifeguard on duty". Ha, ha. I did laugh.

But then I let my true feelings of annoyance take over. So in response to that ha ha funny Instagram picture, responses, and Internet hilarity let me interject a teaching moment with a few key points.

1. Drowning isn't really a humorous topic. Yes, the kid in the photo wasn't drowning, but he could have been. Drowning is in the top five of unintentional deaths in the United States and it is the number one cause of death in children in Florida. People think that because they know how to swim they are safe, but that is SO NOT the case. Drowning is suffocation in the water, not in a pool. Drunk college student puking his guts out in the toilet passes out with his head in the toilet bowl? Drowned. Adult slips, hits head, and falls face down in a puddle on the sidewalk? Drowned. Small child playing with a bucket of water or in the bath tub unsupervised and has a mishap? Drowned. That picture for real lifeguards, past and present, is heartbreaking because we know that it only takes a second for a drowning to occur.
2. Lifeguarding is a serious job. I once argued with a doctor who felt his job was the most important because he saved lives. While I agreed to a certain point, I reminded him that my job, while involving the same thing, got to the person first. If I did my job correctly, I made his job easier or obsolete in regards to water injuries. There is a huge preconception that lifeguarding is about fun, sun, gorgeous bodies, and an easy job for summer teens. I worked with a group of people who were all college graduates and we were regarded as lazy and unemployable because we chose that career path. Lifeguarding is a stressful job, right up there with doctors and firefighters because it doesn't end when you go home. Planning on taking your kid to a pool party? Hey, guess what. You won't be relaxing. Lifeguards work the weekends and holidays and deal with idiots who think drinking around water is a smart idea  Lifeguards spend their entire duty time watching to make sure people don't get hurt. Take your eyes off for a second and it could mean the difference between life and death. My daughter contemplated becoming a lifeguard, and I'll tell you, I wasn't on board with it. It's an important, damn stressful, and anxiety riddled job. I still have dreams about many of my rescues and wake up sweating and wondering "what if". Want to watch a realistic movie then watch Sam Elliot's Lifeguard instead of Baywatch. 
3. Lifeguarding includes many facets. Lifeguards are responsible for everyone and everything that happens around their base. Lifeguards have resuscitated patrons, stabilized broken limbs, delivered babies, restarted hearts, performed tracheotomies, staunched bleeding, used the Heimlich maneuver, held together a carotid artery, kissed boo boos, jumped off bridges, parented lost and/or abandoned children, and those are just the ones I know about from colleagues. In my years on the job I was called away from the pool to assist with CPR on a golf course and on a tennis court, discovered a gas chlorine leak, sent people to the hospital for stitches, low blood pressure attacks, and chest pains, diagnosed skin cancers, and I've lost count of the number of adults and children I've pulled out of the water.   

That picture and the accompanying story could have easily gone the other way, and I'd be using the above to defend the job for entirely different reasons. The easy solution I came up with is to remove "Lifeguard" shirts for sale to the general public. Remember years ago when someone wore a "Police" ball cap and either intercepted a crime or committed one and there was suddenly an outcry on making it illegal to wear articles of clothing that said, "Police, Fire, FBI, etc"? I got the why with that and would have been on board with pushing it. It's a crazy world out there and nowadays you don't know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.

Lifeguarding, like the above jobs above, involves life and death situations, and knowing the trained experts is important. I wore my shirt with pride, and believe me, if I was in that shirt either coming from or going to my job I was on duty. With or without that shirt, I was on duty because the law was a slippery slope in regards to obligation. People! Don't wear that stuff unless you are prepared to do the job! It's one of the same reasons why I don't wear my scrubs out in public!