It was a typical Friday night at the pool. Lots of kids, lots of splashing, short staffed. We had just rotated lifeguards and I was on my 20 minute break. I was cleaning up around the pool when I noticed a kid in a life jacket venture into the deep end - a big fat NO at our pool. So, I walked around the deck to go talk to him and get him out of the deep end. As I'm crouching down talking to him, the lifeguard in the chair screamed my name. I looked up and the mom of this child had ventured into the deep end to get him. She couldn't swim and she was actively drowning.
Shit!
I immediately left the kid (he was fine; he was in a life jacket) and jumped in the pool. I swam to her quickly, grabbed her, and began kicking towards the shallow end. Because I was not the lifeguard on duty, I did not have a rescue tube which means my only flotation was my swimming skills. The woman freaked out and grabbed me around the neck, taking me down with her. In my head I was totally panicking and doing what I could do to keep the both of us safe. I kept hold of her, but I was trying to push her off to keep the both of us from drowning (we are taught escapes for this exact reason). Finally I was able to catch a breath and ask her to kick with me. She said she couldn't. Yikes! What seemed like an eternity later I was able to kick her the few feet to the shallow end where she grabbed hold of the rope and stood up.
My husband and kid were swimming at the time and saw the whole thing happen. Dave helped me get out of the pool, saying it was the scariest and coolest thing he's ever seen. I talked to the woman about what happened and grabbed my manager-on-duty to help fill out an incident report. There were several things we could have done better on this rescue - should have hit our emergency button, the other guard should have cleared the pool and thrown me a rescue tube, etc. - but the important thing was we helped the woman, no one drowned, and everything turned out just fine.
The rest of the night I was a wreck. I literally shook and cried sitting in the guard chair for the rest of my shift. I had a lot of adrenaline running through my body and thinking back to what I did was just scary. That night I had a nightmare about it. Looking back I'm so thankful we are so well trained, that I was in the right place at the right time, and that I'm in amazing shape and could perform the rescue without the use of a tube. It was so scary; I don't want to do it again any time soon.
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4 comments:
HOLY CRAP. You are a hero. That is so scary!!!! I'm glad that everything turned out ok but I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been....
I can only imagine. We (a group of 14 adults) lost my 5 year old niece at the State Fair once. I was the one who noticed she was missing and the one who found her (she was holding on to a guy's leg, he said she just grabbed him, he realized she was lost and scared and getting more scared when he spoke to her so he just stayed put, knowing someone would come searching). No idea how long it actually was, maybe only 10 minutes of searching? It felt like forever. I remember the aftermath, similar to yours shaking, crying, nightmares for days. And I remember thinking of things I should have done (not losing her in the first place obviously, but if I'd taken a few crowd pictures in each direction right away, those maybe could have been enlarged if we didn't find her at the fair, and if I'd left my camera with my sister-in-law, she would have had photos from that day of her daughter to show police). She's so lucky you were there, and it's good that everything turned out. Take care of yourself. I've read a lot about officer-involved shootings due to my husband's job, and I imagine a lot of the emotion that goes with that is similar to what you're experiencing.
absolutely a hero. and SO scary! i picture this being a situation like i fear where someone codes in public and im the one to help. you face fears in moments like this with knowledge not everyone has. wonderful. xo
During one my summers of lifeguarding 40 years ago as a teenager I was walking the pool deck and was walking past a 10 year old girl who had gone down a water slide into 6 feet of water. She could not swim and the look of sheer terror on her face as she realized she was drowning is still etched in my memory. I jumped into the water to save her (we didn't carry bouys then) and she grabbed me around my neck so fast and so tight I couldn't believe it. I was a very strong swimmer and got us to the edge immediately but 40 years later I still re-live that moment. Having gone through that experience ingrained in my mind the very real danger one faces when executing any rescue. It's frightening but it's one of those experiences that eventually makes you stronger and more confident; you learn from it -- different scenarios play out in your mind knowing what you know, knowing what you would do differently and better if ever faced with that situation again.
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