Lifeguarding
When I was in high school I blagged a job as a lifeguard for a company that apartment complexes hired to provide community swimming pool management and lifeguarding.

I ended up a pool in a relatively ghetto apartment complex. Not horrible, but lower middle class folks.

What lifeguarding amounts to at a community pool is: well paid and trained baby-sitter. Parents would literally drop their kids off at the pool on their way to work in the morning and pick them up when they got home. So I got to know those kids pretty well.

I was a stickler for NO running on the pool deck. It was an order I shouted probably 20-40 times per day. Seriously. Kids are kids and they forget.

There was this one kid, Jerome. He was 11 I think, slightly taller than the rest of the kids, but still a kid. Excellent basketball player though (we had a court next to the pool, so when noone was swimming I'd grab a ball and go shoot some hoops).

So this one day he is running around on the pool deck (concrete) and I yelled at him THREE Times. I said "Jerome, seriously, next time I raise my voice for this, you're out of the pool for two days. PERIOD." He nodded petulantly.

Not five minutes later he takes off after another kid and JUST as I am standing up on the lifeguard chair to properly BELLOW the words "JEROME YOU ARE OUT OF HERE!", he slips.

He smacks his face into the hard concrete pool deck, right at the edge of the pool...and blood starts POURING from his lower lip. He had literally driven his teeth right through the lower lip and blood was GUSHING out of him into the pool.

Now, typically, blood diffuses pretty quickly in a large pool of water...this was not. It was a RAPIDLY growing dark red cloud in the deep end of the pool and it wasnt dissipating.

Not wanting to have to climb down and run around the pool, I dove off the stand and swam over to where he was laying, literally just staring at the accumulating blood in the pool, in shock. I was careful to avoid swimming through the red cloud and got up to see the lower lip was just hanging on his face.

It freaked me out. I hollered to the other guard and told her to call 911...she finished reading the chapter of the book she was reading before dialing, but the ambulance was there in a few minutes.

The entire time, Jerome didnt say a word. Just stared at me as I was trying to staunch the blood flow with gauze and pressure.

Three days later, he was released from the hospital after some SIGNIFICANT repair work. A week after that he was back at the pool. He wasnt there 15 minutes before I had to scream at him: "JEROME STOP THE GODDAMNED RUNNING!"

Some kids never learn.
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Thu 7 Aug 2008, 20:21, 5 replies)

I get the feeling
he's going to earn a Darwin award...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 7 Aug 2008, 20:44, closed)

Good Point
You know, I need to do a Google search for "Jerome" and "Darwin Award" to see if he has already in fact popped his clogs as a direct result of stupid activity!

Good call Loon!

Sean
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Thu 7 Aug 2008, 20:54, closed)

But what all the lady b3tans want to know is
were you wearing a uniform?
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 7 Aug 2008, 21:51, closed)

Um...yes, kind of
Red swimming trunks with a white cross on them. They looked similar to the Swiss flag! :)

And I had the uniformly tanned, muscular body of a high school athlete planning for the military. And the sun bleached hair to boot. Oh, and the white zinc oxide on my nose. So yeah, your typical lifeguard uniform.

It was a gnarly job!
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Thu 7 Aug 2008, 23:12, closed)

*swoons*
;)
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 10:34, closed)