Crazy Times at the Toaster

So the past week I worked at the Toaster (the Contemporary) every day except for one. Two of those days some interesting things occurred.

~Wednesday, July 15th~
Sean and I both got VATed one after another about an hour before our shift ended. Sean was VATed first at BOTTOM and since I was on LAP with the radio I called it in. Then minutes later the same coordinator that VATed Sean VATed me as well. She had come into my zone and was playing basketball with the kids. I had no idea she even had the VAT on her since I saw our on duty coordinator and manager leave the pool deck. Both of us saw and retrieved our VATs in under 30 seconds, which is our time limit.

~Saturday, July 18th~
This was the fun day for me. I was only a few hours into my shift and I got audited for the first time. It was a full out live in-house audit. An audit is when Ellis or our coordinators and managers created a live scenario and we have to react as if it were real, this includes live whistles and everything. Needless to say it can freak out the guests. So onto the audit...

I was the guard at BOTTOM. I heard a bang on the slide and then one of our recreation members came down. She stood there for a second and then grabbed her neck and said "ow ow my neck my neck!" This was the point at which I realized I was being audited so I began procedure. As primary rescuer I blew my whistle sharply once to alert the other guards and entered the water. When I reached her I asked if she could walk to the side of the pool and she replied no. This activated the next step of the EAP. I then turned and blew 3 sharp whistles, held up my fist and shouted "lifeguard needs assistance, a trauma bag and a backboard. you in the red shorts call 911 and report back to me." I turned back around to begin to prepare my "guest" to be extracted but two guests had already grabbed her thinking it was real. I wasn't sure how to nicely tell them to f*** off so I just tried to gain control and get procedure back in line since everything we had ever been taught had not involved guest interference. This is the first time ever during an audit that a guest had interfered. We then began extraction procedures. During the extraction our "guest" went unconscious, which made us change procedure. Once she was removed from the pool another guard took over as primary rescuer since I was still in the pool. I then got out and began to set up the oxygen while the other guard began rescue breathing followed by CPR when we were told that our "guest" no longer had a pulse. We followed that by hooking up the AED and giving a shock followed by moving her to recovery position since we had regained a pulse and breathing.

During the entire audit we had managers and coordinators and extra guards all around. New guards took over the stands that were abandoned by the on-duty guards because we were the ones being audited since for audits we don't actually shut down the pool. Our manager stood with a sign that said "Lifeguard audit in progress" and our coordinator stood by telling us what we were or weren't seeing when it came to if the guest was breathing or had a pulse since we were on a perfectly healthy person. After we completed the audit they handed me towels since I was the totally soaked guard and we went into a grassy area to talk about the audit. We had a few minor mistakes that could be worked on but for the most part we did a good job. There was no doubt that we had passed the audit because none of our mistakes would change the outcome drastically. During this time I asked what to do if a guest interferes and was told that we are allowed to take charge and if we have to be rude to gain control that thats what we must do.

It was crazy because a lot of guests thought that the situation was real. Other guests were just so entranced by the fact that they were seeing the lifeguards in action. I have quite a few guests come up to me afterwards and ask me about what had happened and told me I had done a good job and that they were impressed at how quickly we all reacted to the situation handed to us.

Needless to say it was a hectic day. It was my first audit ever and I was the primary rescuer so to have done well is a nice feeling. Not even veteran guards always do well so it was nice to know that I seem to be good at my job.