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u/alipoop asked: Lifeguards of Reddit, what's the weirdest thing you've seen someone do in the water?
Are you serious?
GiphyWe once had a man come into our pool for lane swim. He had all the latest gear, brand new suit, cap and goggles. He got to the edge of the deck and did some arm circles, adjusted his goggles and dove into the pool.
He popped up for a few seconds then promptly started flailing and gasping for breath. A colleague jumped in and pulled him out immediately. We were all really confused until he told us he had never swam before and he thought it came naturally.
Some people will do anything for attention.
Fake drowning by a woman who admitted that she wanted my attention. I wanted to drown her.
UNO Reverse card
You know you can buy oxygen, right?
GiphyA lady once had an "asthma attack" so we put her on the oxygen only to find out that her oxy saturation levels were at 100%, turns out she just wanted an oxygen high.
Thank goodness she had that life jacket.
Life guarding was my first job when I was 16.
I watched a little girl around 9-10 years of age dive head first (with a life jacket on) into a kitty pool of about 6 inches.
Needless to say, she smoked her dome and I had to patch up a little cut on her forehead.
We love a witty lifeguard.
Couple having sex in the water -not as fun as you would think though. There's lots of kids around.
We'd yell that "this is a family facility, not a family making facility" and they'd always stop.
Somehow so smart yet so dumb.
GiphyOn the hottest day of the year when we were short on guards, we paid a guy 5 bucks to s**t in the pool so we could clear it for an hour to clean.
Kids today and their anarchy.
I worked 3 years as a lifeguard for my local community center. Our place was somewhat unique as we both had an indoor pool and water park, complete with water slide and other such things. There were also containers filled with pool toys and other things like life preservers, life vests, and kick boards.
One day, while I was on break, my supervisor comes running into the break room and tells all of us (there were three of us on break) to come help control a situation in the water park area.
Apparently, one of the summer camps' kids had rallied enough kids together and coordinated them into constructing makeshift rafts with all the pool equipment. By the time we made it out on deck, they had already made a motley fleet of boats pieced together with pool noodles, life jackets, and other floating toys.
The issue however was not that they had macgyvered this little fleet, but how the camp had split into factions and begun an all-out naval engagement in the pool. Pool noodles were now being used as makeshift water cannons, and things only escalated from there.
Some of the kids had broken into our supply closet and found our stash of other water toys (super soakers, water balloons, etc.) and came whooping out onto the deck. A few of the kids made armor out of the kick boards and vests and were wielding the boueys we use for water aerobics like clubs. Others had taken the water balloons to the top of the water slide and we're lobbing them off in some crude bid for air superiority. This one girl had taken her camp shirt and tied it to a pool skimmer, waving it like a flag and yelling "FOR THE KING! FOR THE KING!"
It took thirty minutes to regain control of the situation, in which time one of the guards required stitches due to being pistol whipped with a water gun by an overzealous 11 year old.
We never did invite that camp back.
The cycle begins.
I once watched as another guard jumped in then performed a front active rescue. As she pulled the victim up he threw up all over her. Leading her to throw up all over him. And then back and forth. Causing both of them to start drowning. Then I jumped in from the other side did a rear active rescue on my own coworker as another guard saved the original victim.
Awkward day...
That can't be comfortable.
GiphyI was a lifeguard at a camp, and this Pentecostal church came to stay (about 500 of them). Even in the pool, the boys would wear slacks and a belt. No shirt, but they'd be wearing their tan slacks, and brown belt. Blew my mind.
Not that hunky.
Was a lifeguard at an indoor apartment pool. One lady was mostly paralyzed on one side. She also could not swim in deep water.
So, lady would do laps in the shallow end, but because of the paralysis, would end up swimming into the deep end where she would promptly panic.
She did this over and over and over. Probably these days (twenty years later) I would ban her from the pool, but I was a teenager at the time who certainly did not want to make any waves, so I ended up making literal waves regularly to save her.
I would suggest that she liked being saved by the hunky lifeguard to deliberately drown herself so regularly, but I'm not that hunky.
Vomit worthy.
I worked at a college pool so we had a standard Olympic sized high dive, I had to tell a kid that was at least 11-12 yrs old not sit under the board and drink the water falling off the people about to jump.
I can't imagine how much a**/foot/b*lls water that kid ingested. It was sick.
Are you sure that wasn't a rabbit in a bikini?
GiphyNot really in the water technically but still a head scratcher. Used to work at a very high end gym back in college. You could pay annually ~$1000 or monthly to the tune of about $120.
Had a regular who would come in late afternoons every sat and sun to our outdoor pool. This lady was absolutely stunning. Maybe early 30's and the physique of a super model. Always wore a super tight purple bikini and lounged out on the stone wall encompassing the hot tub. Never actually in the hot tub but would lie on her back along the wall. Made it really hard as a 20 year old male lifeguard to concentrate on the people in the water. Thank god for sunglasses.
It was also hard to remain focused on the other patrons as this lady would proceed to then one-by-one pick the leaves off the shrub next to the wall, eat them, and hold a conversation with herself while staring into the sky.
As the leaves would start to dwindle on that particular shrub over the course of the week, she'd move farther along down the wall and start on the next one. This continued every summer for about 2 years until I left for the military. Wherever you are lady, I hope you're doing well outside of your career calling as a deer or rabbit.
There was also the man who got pissed when we closed the waterslide for the night so he went over to the children's wading section, took a big dump, and ran, fleeing out the side gates. Jokes on you buddy, we got to shut down for the day and got paid to f**k around on my phone in the guard office.
No bricks allowed.
Late to the party but I was a lifeguard for about 6 years.
About half of my job was telling people, "as a reminder, please do not throw any of the rocks, sand or seaweed at the beach (it's crowded are you serious?!)"
This one guy shouts back, "can I throw bricks?" My out-loud response was to ask if he had any bricks on him at the moment. He insisted he didn't have any on him, but could go out to his truck and get a bunch.
I responded into the megaphone, "as a reminder, please do not throw any of the rocks, sand, seaweed or bricks at the beach".
We both yucked it up a bit and went back to our respective lives.
Father-son bonding.
Worked as an open water lifeguard last year, and worked on a 100m long inflatable assault course.
Throughout the hottest parts of the summer, seaweed would often be found along the edges and safety straps (the course was made out of multiple inflatable obstacles fastened together) and it was our job every morning to clean this. Sometimes spots were missed, as we had about 30 minutes for just one of us (the task ran on a rota, so a different person did it each day) to clean the entire park.
Halfway through one day, a dad and his son find a strap covered in seaweed and jellyfish eggs. Usually people recoil and stay away upon touching the stuff, but instead these two pull the seaweed and eggs off the strap and throw it back and forth at each other for about half an hour. Was weird to watch, and kinda disgusting.
If you're still a beginner, personal flotation devices can be used by kids and adults. Adult rated floaties are available here.
