My 21-year old daughter just got a pt job as a pool guard in my local govt. swimming pool. Problem: she’s not a good swimmer and has no first-aid or rescue training. She explained her lack of abilities in the interview but they were apparently all, ‘Yeah, nah, that’s fine’. They’re not even going to give her any training. Apart from all of the physical and mental health hazards for everyone concerned, I can’t believe the local govt. could leave themselves open to the liability issues when, not if, something goes horribly wrong. Is it the same in other countries? Of course I’ve been trying to get my daughter to quit but neither she nor anyone else seems to see or care about the potential for disaster.
7 comments
Seems like she’s a pool guard instead of a trained life guard. Probably just to keep the area secure and have the ‘no life guard on duty’ signs/stance.
She applied for a job she probably isn’t physically capable of (applying to be a pool guard when you can’t swim well) that’s on her but anything else is on whoever hired her assuming she is being truthful to you and didn’t lie on her interview.
Currently there are no certifications required for being a life guard at any pool. Clearly this is a law that needs to be updated and I think many pool users just assume that the person sitting in that tall chair is someone qualified to save lives. Not always the case.
With the labor shortage being very real I have a feeling they simply cannot find real lifeguards, at least not with the modest pay of publicly funded facilities.
But yeah, if I were you I’d try to talk her out of it since that’s a huge liability if something happened
-Anecdotal-
Currently in a small town in the mountains. The local pools are run by the Board of Education. Any lifeguard we have on duty goes through training for CPR and water rescues. Not sure of what the training entails or how long it is but we do have them certified.
This was brought up when the pool was first built 15-ish years ago. The board had members who regularly helped at swim competitions and made sure to put swimming ability and willingness to be certified in part of the hiring process.
Why did she apply? Seems dangerous for her. Also I hope she can swim. Everyone should know how to swim.
One of my kids was a beach lifeguard for ~5 summers. Most beach lifeguard groups seem to be volunteer run, though there is an overall Japan lifeguard association. She is an *extremely* strong swimmer and received a lot of training & mentoring within the group. She rescued a number of half-drowned idiots over the summers she volunteered at a major beach. Honestly, pretty proud of her.
It sounds like a pool guard is quite a bit different to being an actual lifeguard.
The pools around will hire anyone for most positions but try to have one person trained in CPR on every shift.
“Pool guard” or “lifeguard”? If the former, as someone posted above, it might be close to what a è¦å‚™å“¡ might be doing.
Used to work as a lifeguard at a number of 市民プール for a couple of summers back when I was in college. This was over 20 years ago so I’m not sure how it is now but almost all of the pools, while actually run by the local gov’t, outsourced their lifeguard jobs to private companies and they definitely asked if you can swim when you went in for an interview to be a lifeguard. Can confirm that there are no requirements when applying for the job, however, they will definitely make you swim and provide basic training. From my experience, starting a few days before the pools opened for the season, we would be in the pool every day to train/practice. After we opened for the season, we would be in the pool to train/practice every morning before we opened and every evening after we closed. It would usually be a couple of laps, treading water for a few minutes, jumping into the pool from the lifeguard chairs and practicing rescuing people, and maybe a little water polo for fun as well if we had time. If you couldn’t do all of this, I’m sure they would have kicked you out.