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Abstract
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Drowning is a universal and leading cause of accidental death worldwide (Avramidis, 2003a; Bierens, Knape, & Gelissen, 2002). Some people believe that the solution to preventing drowning is to have lifeguards assigned to all areas where people can swim or enter the water. Several decades ago, some people believed that a key to improved water safety was at hand, merely through the hiring of lifeguards. Eventually, most aquatic agencies realized that another key to improved water safety is the careful training and supervision of these lifeguards (Griffiths, 2000). In fact, this author argues that we also need a "head" or "lead" lifeguard, who will "guard," or supervise, the lifeguards.
The contention that we need a head guard or supervisor is supported by a number of observations about lifeguarding behaviors that are reported in the lit- erature. First, lifeguard vigilance rarely can be maintained at an optimum level for more than 30 min. At the same time, detection of critical environmental cues while engaged in lifeguarding vigilance tasks is never 100% (Coblentz, Mollard, & Cabon, 2001). The quality of visual scanning also decreases over the day, prob- ably due to personal factors such as fatigue, monotony, stress, heat, and noise (Coblentz, Mollard, & Cabon, 2001; Ellis and Associates & Poseidon Technolo- gies, 2001), the number of people in the aquatic environment (Harrell, 1999), social distractions, schoolwork demands, ancillary maintenance duties, and even the degree of peer acceptance (Griffiths, 1998, 2000; Pia, 1984). Because life- guarding is the first employment for many young people, it is likely that many young lifeguards may not yet have developed mature behavior reflective of an adequate adult work ethic (Griffiths, Steel, & Vogelsong, 1996, 1999). Second, people tend to blame others for threatening events and a lifeguard may be held responsible for a drowning incident without having been its primary cause (Tenner & Affleck, 1990). In the event of a drowning or other traumatic events, lifeguards need backup from an experienced person who will act as the representative for the aquatic facility (Avramidis, 2003a, b). Third, lifeguards around the world often are not highly paid (Brewster, 2007; Wood, 1999) and required to work for exces- sively long periods of time. This lack of remuneration may induce some not to work as conscientiously as they should, especially if they believe that the employer does not value them or the service they provide. Finally, lifeguards' knowledge of safety in the pool area is not as high as desired (Johnson, 2004)
Language: en |