Posted on 08/07/2006 5:16:16 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
Parent's removed the child and performed CPR while the public servant did nothing.
If the kid wasn't being watched by parent's he'd be dead.
Why on earth would a homosexual with AIDS be hired as a lifeguard in the first place? I can understand it if this sick sodomite doesn't want to infect the boy, but if he feels that way then he should have kept his "mouthpiece" on a chain around his neck. Sheesh.
Now get rid of the p.o.s.
I guess I don't understand. In waht respect am I unavble to put them at the same level as career police officers?
My remarks about LEOs were not made in consideration of "career" v. "reserve". Anybody who pins on the badge should check the duty belt and make sure the pistol is working and loaded at least daily, whether they're career or not. Similarly, anybody sitting in the lifeguard stand or wearing the uniform or whatever should think through what the gig is.
Further, I am not disputing the training or the actions of the lifeguards -- given the situation. I think it is not impossible to get AIDS or Hepatitis or somesuch in these circumstances. Since I think the term "lifeguard" has to do with not only one's own life but that of others, there is something wrong with taking that position while unprepared to guard somebody's life.
I have had, many times, CPR training, including with an AED. I have also more than once taken the Red Cross Life Saving course. I'm aware of the advice to use a device of some kind to deal with pathogens and other unpleasant concomitants of mouth to mouth rescue breathing.
I think if there life guards were hired, it was incumbent on their employer to see that they were equipped. It was also incumbent on them to think through what doing their job mean with the equipment made available, and if they determined they couldn't do the job, to quit. However old they are, to pose as life guards and to decline to do what the job entails seems wrong to me.
In the days when fire was discovered, the wheel invented, and I took my first Red Cross Life Saving course, (not counting Jr. Life Save) I was 15. I don't think I was especially remarkable in wit, skill, or virtue. But I knew the job had the potential to bear life and death responsibility. I guess because there was no hope of my impressing the chiquitas I thought about the job and what was involved and about how to prepare to do the job well. I think these young people did not do that and that is culpable, both for them and for their employer.
Notice those were other kids' parents, not the parents of that kid.
Actually you are not alone. Most people don't, even when someone's life is at stake.
Honestly, lifeguards are notorious for failing to resuscitate. Its common and not really their fault. Real trauma situations are much different than training. Even EMS and medics take a few traumas to acclimate. We never depend on rookies to act, until they have been on 5 -10 trauma runs. It is overwhelming for most people the first few times.
Parents should understand this though. JUST BECAUSE A LIFEGUARD IS ON DUTY DOESN'T MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE TO WATCH YOUR CHILD!! Parents should also be trained in infant/child CPR, because lifeguards can't be depended on. I have seen too many children die, because the parents believe that lifeguards are infallible. Sorry for yelling, this is a real personal issue for me.
SFW. What does that have to do with the money and oxygen wasted on the so-called lifeguards.
It would be more responsibe to have no life-guards on duty rather than a number of glorified manequins in big tall chairs.
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