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| A California's lifeguard's life not all sun and fun By Jill Serjeant US News Jun 8, 2007 HUNTINGTON BEACH, California - The day of reckoning for 53 trainee lifeguards began under 'gloom June' gray skies with a 250-yard (250-meter) dash across the sand and a 200-yard (200-meter)ocean swim through six-feet-high crashing waves out to a distant buoy. Repeat four times. No wetsuit. No breaks. Follow up with a written test and several hours of mock rescues, cardiopulmonary resuscitation drills and first aid on the beach. |
| 'A lot of people think lifeguarding is a piece of cake, that you are sitting in the sun hustling chicks. But it is a life-or-death job,' said California lifeguard supervisor Mike Silvestri.
Yet despite the glamorous image epitomized by 'Baywatch' of rippling muscles, red shorts and gravity-defying slow-motion beach jogs, finding and keeping good long-term lifeguards is getting tougher, and a shortage is developing. 'It is getting harder to find qualified individuals who want the job, both in the United States and world-wide,' said Silvestri, who started his career in 1971. Lifeguards say with pride that 95 percent of the general population couldn't even get through the rigorous physical trials needed for acceptance in the 80-hour ocean training program. 'People are not as physically gifted,' Silvestri aid. 'In school, you don't have to do PE (physical education) anymore. Very few of the kids we train go on to do the job as a career. Nowadays people can take a computer tech job that pays beyond 14 or 15 dollars an hour.' 'From 600 seasonal lifeguards, we have a hard time getting 10 of them to try out for permanent positions,' he said. Despite good medical and retirement benefits lifeguards earn as a state employee, and a starting salary of around $60,000, many people are put off by the requirement for basic police training needed to become a permanent lifeguard. |
| INTENSE EIGHT DAYS OF TRAINING
California's wide sandy beaches, year-round sunshine, dangerous rip tides, surfing culture and 300-mile (480-km) ocean coastline made it the natural home of lifeguarding as an organized profession in the 1960s. The lifeguard ocean training program at Huntington State Beach, known as Surf City, prepares about 150 rookies a year for jobs from the Mexican border to Northern California. The program's international reputation draws trainees from as far afield as Argentina, Spain and New Zealand who take what they have learned to jobs back home. Several hundred recruits compete in the trials -- a 1,000-yard (1,000 meter) ocean swim in 20 minutes held in March (ocean temperature a brisk mid-50s F) -- but less than half qualify for the intense eight-day training in first aid, lifesaving techniques and ocean water skills. 'It is a lot more rigorous than I thought it was going to be,' said William O'Donnell, 21, a University of Colorado student and water polo player who completed the final ocean test with barely a shiver. Said Heather Thompson, 16: 'It is the most intense thing I have ever done. Being one of a few girls and keeping up with the guys, it's important to hold your own.' The toughest part of the job is often mental, with long hours alone in a lifeguard tower on a crowded summer beach in a nation where half the population don't know how to swim. On Huntington State Beach, some lifeguard towers make 50 rescues a day in summer on beaches packed with surfers, body-boarders and people who often swim with their shorts and T-shirts on. 'You are in a tower eight hours a day, unsupervised, making independent decisions. One of the hardest things to teach is to put your head on a swivel and constantly be looking at the ocean,' said Silvestri, scanning the rolling waves for test stragglers. The famous red shorts or swimsuits are a badge of honor, bestowed on graduation. 'Some of these kids go home and sleep in the shorts. They are so proud to have survived these eight days,' said Silvestri. As a new batch of seasonal recruits prepare to take to their towers at the start of the summer season, dozens of old hands with 25-plus years of experience are looking toward retirement. 'It is a tough job, you end up with bad shoulders and bad knees and some skin problems because of the sun,' said Silvestri. 'But it is still absolutely the greatest job in the world,' he said. 'There is no better feeling than sending someone home to their family who would have died if you hadn't rescued them.' |
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