Lifeguarding: mom edition

Guess who has become the most recently certified lifeguard in our family? Yes, yes, it’s me. Taking a lifeguard class this Fall ended up being one of my favorite things. An intense, 3-day weekend learning how to pull people out of a pool, surrounded by teenagers. This may come as a shock, but I was the oldest attendee in the class. There was a college girl there and upon seeing me she said, “oh good. I thought I was going to be the weird old one in class.”

Thank you. I will take that title. I will take it proudly.

Also. What college student feels old?

I had been wanting to take this class for two years, but every time the sign-ups rolled around I’d come up with an excuse. It’s really quite daunting to block off 27 hours of a weekend. This time, however, the class snuck up on me in the best way. I called my lifeguard friend to inquire about scheduling and she said, “I have a cert class that starts tomorrow, I’ll put you on the roster.”

Sometimes the only way to get something done is to have it sprung on you.

After finishing the class, I have just one thing to say to the general public. It is in your very best interest to have a mom on that lifeguard stand.

Let me explain.

The final test was a real-life scenario. Jump in, drag someone out of the pool, perform CPR, call for an AED and on. Meanwhile, the instructor is yelling out scenario shifts. Such as, “okay you got the baby out of the water, now the baby is vomiting…the baby has stopped vomiting…but now is seizing…”

You really gotta think on your feet. This is, what’s a nice way to put it, overwhelming to the average teenager. I don’t want to boast, but I handled my scenario like a rockstar, much to the shock of my classmates.

“How do you remember the things? Sometimes it’s 6 breaths, other times it’s 2, when do you sweep the mouth? It’s so many logistics all at once.”

All I could think: the only thing I have to do is pull this dude from the bottom of the pool, call 911 and do CPR? That’s nothing. Try figuring the logistics of two kids who need to be in two places at the same time, your car has a flat tire, your husband is out of town and if you don’t get yourself to this dentist appointment they’re going to reschedule you for the ‘next available’ which we all know will be a minimum of 4 months from now.

We don’t need lifeguards, we just need more moms. Because that scenario, above? Handled. Handled in about 5 minutes, 2 phone calls and 3.5 texts.

I also shocked my fellow classmates by being the only one who had ever performed the Heimlich in real life…three times. Three kids, y’all. Is that not typical?

“Do kids really choke that much?” – shocked teen
“I mean, kids fall down every third step learning how to walk, it only makes sense they choke learning how to eat.” – jaded me

One of the boys was troubled that I was stronger than him. This became apparent when we were maneuvering the backboard to an underwater victim. I would hope so, I have three children and for most of their lives my standard of fitness has been the ability to scoop up all three and flee. Which I can still do. For the record.

It was a great class and as is typical during the exploit of new things I found myself thinking dang, maybe I missed my calling. Maybe I should have joined the Coast Guard and become a rescue swimmer like that awesome movie with Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner.…and then I would look around and remember I was in the sauna to warm up after I felt “a little chilled” being in the 81 degree lap pool for an hour.

If you haven’t seen it, the movie is called The Guardian and it really is quite good. It also is really not something I could ever do.

Teenagers are great and I’m so glad we have hundreds of them working at our Y or else I wouldn’t be able to swim laps whenever I so desire.

But just know, the next time you see the “weird old one” on the lifeguard stand, you’re in good hands.