Features

Section Editor: Sven Bellamy

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Sven Bellamy
Features Editor

Lifeguards have been portrayed in many
ways over the years. The syndication of
the television series Baywatch helped to
bring this career front and center in the
public eye, even though critics dismissed
the show as purely a T and A extravagan-
za. Although Baywatch was often based on
true lifeguard stories, and even dealt with

-real human issues by running episodes on

skin cancer, bulimia, and Down's
Syndrome, the portrayal of bronzed Ken
and Barbie lifeguards hasn't done the pro-
fession any justice.

I can tell you this because I have spent
the last ten years as a lifeguard, and I look
forward to spending the next ten years
maintaining my ties to the aquatics com-
munity, educating people about water
safety and training new generations of
lifeguards.

Lifeguarding really is a lifetime profes-
sion. Jim Tettamanti and Ron Thomson
have been lifeguarding since the late
1960s. Tettamanti hasn’t spent much time
working the beach recently. For the past
15 or so years he’s been working as an
advanced life-support paramedic, but he
still teaches lifeguards when he’s not sav-
ing lives through the Ambulance Service.
Thomson, who's close the same age as
Tettamanti is still guarding, although he
admits that his age is starting to catch up
with him. “I just don’t move as fast as I
used to, and it’s much easier for me to get
injured at work,” he says. This is difficult
to believe when swimming with
Thomson. He can still swim circles
around some of the younger lifeguards.

However, the average age of lifeguards is
dropping. When I began guarding with
the City of Burnaby in 1994, the average

© page 14

age among the lifeguard staff was 24 years
old. The average age among lifeguards
today is 19 years. Sean Healy, Facility
Manager of North Burnaby’s Eileen Dailly
Pool, lifeguard instructor and member of
the National Lifeguard Service (NLS)
committee speculates the decline in age to
changes in municipal recreation budgets.
“Whenever municipalities come under
financial pressure, recreation budgets are
often the first to get cut,” says Healy.
Contemporary municipal recreation
budgets don't allow for full-time staff
positions. Most staff are hired on as sea-
sonal, or auxiliary workers. “The older
lifeguards have been moving on to calmer
waters,” says Healy. “People want stability
in a job. They want benefits and paid hol-
idays. When a city like Burnaby has
almost 200 lifeguards on staff, there isn’t
enough money in the budget to pay full-
time benefits to this many employees.”

As a result, older guards seek out jobs
that offer more in terms of benefits and
stability. Many lifeguards that I have
worked with have moved into similar,
public positions. Janine Smith, Paul
Reuben, and Sandra Sokugawa have all
become teachers. They all agree that
teaching is a natural progression for life-
guards. “I moved from teaching kids how
to float and walk on the pool deck, to
teaching many of the same kids how to
share and interact in the classroom,” says
Smith.

Teaching isn’t the only profession that
lifeguards have moved into. Many guards
have become ambulance attendants, fire
fighters, and police officers. A good friend
of mine, Louis Ma, became an RCMP
officer six years ago, “It’s almost like sav-

ing lives,” says Ma. “But I was never shot
at while I was a lifeguard.”

So the average age of lifeguards is drop-
ping, but that’s not the only change in the
profession. Healy uses shrinking financial
resources to explain much of what’s hap-
pening in the lifeguarding industry. “As
lifeguards, we are much more aware now
of customer service,” says Healy. “Because
people have less money to spend frivo-
lously, they are making careful decisions
about where to spend their hard-earned
dollars. We're competing with businesses
like MacDonald’s, Metropolis, movie the-
atres, and of course other aquatic facili-
ties.” As the manager of Eileen Dailly
Pool, Healy has tried to bring as much
customer service training to the lifeguard-
ing staff as possible. “Lifeguarding is all
about customer service,” he says, “what
better service can you offer than making
sure your clients go home alive and well,
and satisfied with their pool experience?”

I have worked with Sean Healy for ten
years now. I can say that he has been a
mentor. I spend a lot of time thinking
about the customer's experience at the
pool, and how I can make sure customers
do leave the pool satisfied.

Reflecting back to earlier years, as a
rookie, memories of myself as a text book
lifeguard make me chuckle, and shake my
head all at the same time. “Don’t run.” I
would shout, or, “Hey, don’t push. Don’t
spit. Don't dive into shallow water. Don't,
don't, don’t.” With so much negative feed-
back going out to clients all the time, it
doesn't surprise me that lifeguards are
often referred to as the fun police.

Healy's philosophy is simple, engage the
customer, be mindful of what body lan-

 

guage is being used, make friends with 4
client. As a veteran lifeguard, I can test
that this strategy beats the cop approa
to lifeguarding—and it’s a splash with 1
patrons.

Of course, there’s still rules that have
be adhered to. Most patrons have tak
swimming lessons and know the rules,
at least some of them. Using langua
like, “Be careful. The deck is slippery.
you fall, it will hurt.”

There’s always the kids that don’t seq
to get the message—the chronic runnd
and shallow water divers. I used to 2
kids if their name was Ben Johnson, b
since he was a Canadian sprinter in 19
doesn’t mean too much to a kid who
only seven or eight years old tod
Instead I found another analogy: “H
are you trying to break a world spe
record?”

Customer interaction follows the Se
Healy approach to lifeguarding. It gets y
client to stop and realize there are con
quences—more importantly, it gets rid
the “no” and the “don’t” language.

Occasionally though, people do g
hurt. Incidents happen, and the lifegua
has to remain calm and collected in ord
to follow through with emergen
response. The benefits of being at a sup4
vised pool or beach is that there’s access
trained, emergency responders—the li
guard team—as well as to specializ
equipment to assist in providing patid
care until the paramedics can arri
Lifeguards in BC and the Yukon
trained in oxygen therapy—one of
first regions in Canada to provide tl
training to lifeguards.

At Eileen Dailly Pool and Leis