fleet_the_fox

I definitely don't think he should be praised as a hero... he wasn't doing his job no matter how much everyone seems to think he actually was. If someone got pulled out of my zone unconscious and blue...I'd resign on the spot after resuscitating of course. It's embarrassing, and it's sad that he's taking the praise.

I'd be all for parent's watching a lifeguard before having their children swim in their zone.

With my experience parents aren't always there. A 12 year old kid is sent to the pool with their siblings ranging for 4-10 and are expected to watch over their brothers and sisters. This is a lot of responsibility to put on a 12 year old in a pool. A lot of people exclaim- "Don't let these kids in the facility, that's just asking for trouble," and I agree to an extent, but I would much rather have good guards covering for these kids, which I know we have, than to have these kids out on the streets for the day while their mom is at work. Again there are different circumstances for each pool, and the location of our pool gives us an obligation to care for these kids. To many we are a daycare. Whether you agree or disagree with that kind of parenting, we can't control it.

This is a tough question to answer. I would say a lot of the safety is up to the facility and maintaining a standard. But for parents, please please please, even if you personally can't swim, put your children in swim lessons and stop the continuation of generations in your family that can't swim. Also, there's nothing wrong with showing up to swim lessons as a 30 year old, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A KID. There's so many families who never teach their kids because they never learned themselves. Lose some pride and learn, it's worth it when it saves your kids life.

Ellis stresses scanning way more than red cross does. We also have external audits performed by Ellis representatives throughout the summer. They come in and video tape each guard, looking for movement of the chin, this means literal zig-zagging of your zone making sure you're covering each and every corner and center, along with a bottom scan. After video taping, they VAT, Visual Awarness Test, a guard. They basically drop a fake baby and the guard has 10 seconds to respond to it. If they don't see the doll in 10 seconds they're pulled form the chair, sent home, and have to go to a 2 hour in-service before they can return to the chair. They also can only fail one VAT before they're fired. These VATs don't just occur when Ellis shows up 2x a summer, they are also performed by our managers multiple times/summer. After the VAT the Ellis representative will ask us to run through scenarios and record our response. Then they rate us.

Any other questions?

I think the safety of children is important enough to be seen by the masses, which is why I posted in IAMA. I'm sorry to disagree with you.