To expect a lifeguard to guard life

[BBisHavingAnotherBBaby]

Today i took DS swimming to the local swimming center, it has a normal type pool (shallow to deep) with like bubbly bits, and this has half hourly waves. It also has a shallow kids pool with two little slides, a very deep pool and 2 sets of flumes, one which comes out in an enclosed space with no depth, two that come out into a pool (same pool).

During the toddler session the deep but lovely and warm pool is closed, as is the enclosed end flume.
The other two flumes are open. As is the kids pool and the normal pool. There are generally 1 or 2 lifegaurds watch the big pool and 1 watch the flume exit pool and the kids paddle pool.

DP and I took DS today, normally I go with friends but he fancied it. He has previously trained as a life guard (now expired), relevant i suppose

It wasnt very busy probably ten -12 families max. One family had 2 kids one parent with each. I think that perhaps mum Thought dad had littler one, either way she was half a pool length from little one, dad was probably about three meters but focused on older child back to Little one. Little one starts to flounder, badly, first I know is life gaurd blowing whistle once and pointing. Mum to far away clearly flustered but makes attempt to get to girl, dad looks panicked cant leave bigger one really but obv little one needs him

Im doing Lengths and obviously have just noticed commotion. DP swimming with DS towards little girl as cant leave him, i shout to dad to go to little girl whilst swimming like
Mad to bigger girl (she was able to float quite well) im not the fastest swimmer.

This obviously happened fast but when dad reached littlw girl she was so not with it coughing and spluttering, but was thankfully fine.

DP reached girl asked if they needed help, first aid etc, i took older girl over to her mum.

Whole family upset, in lamenting myself (stupidly) as if DP hadnt had DS he would of gotten there quicker..

Meanwhile my mild mannered normally gentle Dp is angrier than Ive ever seen him...

Apparently protocol says lifegaurd should have given 3 blasts of whistle and jumped in.. In reality he pointed then sat down! DP raged at life guard, spoke to manager and basically went bat shit. The lifeguard didnt even check the little girl over.

I appreciate that the parents are responsible for their kids but was DP being U to have taken it further? The manager seemed to think so!

YANBU

No, not at all unreasonable!! Go higher. They cannot be allowed to not do such an important job properly. Was he frightened to get wet or something?

there should be more people like your DH around! YANBU

YANBU

My first thought is that the lifeguard probably didn't want to get wet, and thought the parents around would handle it.

Which really should not be his line of thinking!

It sounds really scary, bet you are all shook up.

Well done to you and your dh.

I would ask for someone to look a CCTV footage, all the leisure centre pools with slides etc have it here.

That is disgraceful, thank goodness the little girl was ok. These things can go badly very quickly.

I have to say my experience of uk "lifeguards" is poor, especially when compared to elsewhere in the world (Australia and the UAE spring to mind)

Well that the funny thing he didn't seem bothered! I felt tearful myself (put that down to Pregnancy) the poor mum was a wreck.
The manager actually said "mountain out of a mole hill", DP went purple!
The manager said to the parents children were their responsibility, but in reality I think thats unfair, although the mum was already lamenting herself.
DP writing very angry letter as we speak.

I know it was one of those things but it seemed so wrong of the life guard

Is it possible that it looked scary to those of you in the water but, to the lifeguard, it was just a minor incident and maybe something that he sees often in his line of work? So he knew there was no risk, and that one of the parents would reach her?

Adeu DP was a life guard for years and he would not of taken that risk. It certainly did look Scary, I dont know how long the girl had been struggling and how long it takes for a child to drown, she could of only been about 3?
She was drowsy when they reached her and coughed up a lot of water.

He should sound the correct warning.

However i can understand why he would sit and watch things develop rather than jumping in straight away, especially as the children outnumbered the adults in the water and parents were starting to panic.

It sounds as though it was over before it got serious, so unfair to judge the lifeguard on his life saving skills.

Your DH was right. I had to make a complaint about the complacency of leisure centre staff when a friends child was badly injured and despite asking for assistance, an ambulance etc the only thing the staff including the first aider was interested in doing was getting a sign off that it wasn't their fault. I was left to sort out ambulance, and was given ice pack etc only when I shouted at staff. Friend & child were in shock, so I took charge as the staff were useless. It was a pure accident but the staff made it a far more stressful experience than was needed and were quite happy to let a mother in shock drive a seriously injured and screaming child to A&E on her own. They didn't even help with directions when I pointed out I didn't know the city and was just visiting. (ambulance service said that as it was rush hour it would be quicker to drive straight to hospital rather than wait for ambulance). Whole thing still makes me angry.
What is the point in having trained staff if they don't use their training?

Birds I appreciate that but he was closer than either parent, although i can see that as being a valid point, surely he should have offered medial assistance?

Medical i mean

What medical assistance do you think was needed?

The only guard against secondary drowning is to attend hospital.

When a child starts to drown it goes silent, it is generally incapable of coughing, so perhaps he used his judgement?

Someone should have said to the parents to attend hospital if they were concerned, but a lifeguard would not be able to listen to the child breathe and diagnose them.

As DS 3-4 yo swim class, the water was about 0.6m deep but one little girl slipped and went under.
All the parents watching jumped out of our seats and the swim teacher just picked the wee one up and she was fine.

The life guard DIDN'T EVEN REACT!
He just sat there watching.

The Mum complained and the next week there were 2 lifeguards and neither of them were allowed to sit.

YANBU good on your DH.

Birds i personally meant the girl and parents for mild shock. DP advised them
Hospital may be wise, life guard did not even ask if she was ok! Surely thats the least he could of done?

Does anyone know the current guidelines on How long exactly should a life guard wait before involving themself? I am aware of the real symptoms of drowning, I'm not suggesting that she was near death but If it were me i would have gone in purely as the closest adult.

Its shocking that more people have experienced similar, its certainly changed my confidence in the particular pool.

Incredible! So the lifeguards job is to blow a whistle then sit back?
Write the letter, without a doubt. Well done both of you.

Yanbu and well done both of you! This happened in a similar situation to me, I was with a adult who had a seizure out of our depth, with the bloody wave machine on me yelling and trying to keep us both afloat while life guard looked and pointed a bit! Thank heaven for several other people who jumped in a swam over to help us. I took the compliant further and put it in writing, I would definitely urge you to do the same. I have never understood lifeguards doing this surely it better to jump in when not needed than to do bugger all! Well done again

If people in the pool were reacting and trying to get to the children, i would say the sensible thing to do is to watch, until one shows real signs of being in serious danger.

What if all of the adults rushed to the child in trouble and another ended up in difficulty, how could the lifeguard see this whilst in the water?

I have seen adults push young children out of the way, if they think that one of theirs is struggling, people are not nice/rational in times of what they think is a crisis.

Staff in leisure centre's are not great but i don't agree that jumping in the water straight away is the right thing to do.

Fuck me, scary stuff

Reminds me of incident with ds which I can't write down or I will go into total meltdown like I do every time I think of it

I think the lifeguard should have jumped in - even if the girl was actually safe as you had it covered. Apart from anything else it's not good publicity for the leisure centre - people will lose faith in the safety and stop going there.

Well done btw

Im glad the general consensus is that more should have been done and that we arent crazy people DP is very good at remaining calm so hopefully his interaction with staff and his letter will make them Take action to train staff better, he is looking into who supervises/ regulates private pools to see what standard of training they are required to have, as he is still disgusted.

His own registration expired almost three years ago so he is keen to see what regs have changed

We had an incident several years ago at our local pool where a swimming teacher noticed there was someone lying at the bottom of the pool. They told the lifeguard who didn't know what to do and eventually called the centre manager who dived in and pulled the guy to the surface.

Witnesses at the inquest stated they had seen the lifeguard chatting and flirting at the time the guy was thought to have died. He drowned but apparently had some medical condition. No one was prosecuted.

I was surprised the lifeguard didn't immediately sound the alarm and dive in and secondly that a body was lying in the pool (I can't remember if he died that day or days before) and nobody noticed!

Jesus fluffy that is

Ive heard a tale of a small child dying at the local leisure Center, got trapped under one of those inflatable island huge things at a birthday party... No proof as to the truth but still a worrying idea

Sorry re read my OP should Clarify that there are three pools but only two
Were open and the incident occured in the deeper but not deepest part of the normal pool

YA sooo BU. It is a sackable offence to guard life if you are a lifeguard; didn't you know that?

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