9:01 p.m. - 2003-05-05
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Rescue Tube.
My recertification class itself numbers 14 participants, in which there are a pack of likeable, terrifyingly haphazard high school kids, and three stand-out teenagers:  quiet, tall, anxious Thea, the waiflike, capable Alice, and Billy--a compulsive swimsuit adjustor, saved from his teenage languor by a wild-eyed competitive streak a league wide.  I know his kind. 

(I am his kind).

There's Ryan--about 21.  Ryan is Michaelangelo's David with a shorter haircut, built as though lovingly constructed to specification.  It's oddly easy to separate my appreciation of his looks from any actual intent, but looking at him still makes me glad to be alive.

Around my age are Janey and Nick.  Janey is bespectacled, chatty and sensitive; Nick looks like a younger version of Trading Spaces' Vern (if Vern was in a constant state of surprise) but is really very thoughtful and present in the moment.

Rounding out the class are the uberintelligent Nurse Nina, and Margaret, a kind, new-agey humanities teacher and imminent camp counselor.

We crowd into a back room twice a week and correct homework, take tests, and watch Red Cr0ss videos--the latter of which are acted by a single cast of  interchangeable lifeguards and victims, rendering the imaginary pool staff the most hilariously accident-prone (perhaps drug-abusing) pool staff that ever lived.  Truly, they ought all to be fired.  With all the lifeguards drowning in those videos, the patrons have to wait in line.

(Of course, the videos of real people drowning and being rescued at a water park was not much better.  The creepy powerlessness of watching someone begin to drown on video--even though they will be saved--is far more terrible than the immediacy of helping a distressed swimmer in real life).

Amid the periodic giggles of the younger segment and the miaowing of Jen's disabled teacup dachsund, we have studied legalities and Good Samaritan laws, consent, personal safety and disease prevention, distressed swimmers, active drownings, passive drownings, submerged victims, choking (conscious and unconscious) on adults, children and babies, CPR (adults, children and infants) backboard removal of unconscious victims, treating shock, stemming bleeding, recognizing a heart attack and first aid for it, and 7 or so ways to move a victim and under what circumstances.  We have also meddled with bag-valve masks and splinting, and grown maudlin and terrified over inline stabilization of head, neck and back injuries on land and in water.

Scalp injuries often bleed heavily.  Putting pressure on the area around the wound can control the bleeding.  Apply pressure gently at first because there may be a skull fracture.  If you feel a depression, spongy areas, or bone fragments, do not put direct pressure on the wound.

Tra-la-la.

After 2 hours in clothes, we suit up, divide into teams of 3 or 4 and drown by turns for another hour and a half.  Jen banishes the gently doomed 3 or 4 to their positions, then feeds the rest of us diabolical situations to act out poolside.

So far, I've been asked to choke on my gum in the pool and swoon, to drown passively for the hell of it, to be an upset mother with a non-breathing plastic infant, and to fake a heart attack in the deep end (and to pass out on the way to poolside, upon being asked what I meant by "I hurt, and...feel strange", to better flummox my rescuers.  (Apparently women's heart attack symptoms are more subtle).

So far, Jen has directed towards a team of myself, Nurse Nina and Nick the Surprised:

* a sneaky non-swimming wall-crawler
* a baby with a seizure
* a running poolside fool with a head injury
* an allergic reaction-turned-passive drowning
* a shallow dive/broken neck
* an mere distressed swimmer or two
* and a broken-wristed epileptic in danger of experiencing a seizure due to shock.

We have routinely done well.

I am thrilled to see that my automatic response has not been harmed, but after not having sat in a tower chair for 10 years, simulations were a bit terrifying.  Part of that fear was based in meeting ordinary  goals, but part of it was a fear of looking bad--Jen recognized me as an ex-guard, early on.

And times have changed...

First and most importantly--I have to keep reminding myself to don gloves prior to rescue breathing and CPR.

Gloves are easy to forget when blood isn't visible.  When I first trained 13 years ago, latex  gloves and resuscitation masks weren't mandatory when responding--and footwear was optional (God knows why; ringworm is timeless).  The comfort of Rescue Tubes--which I no longer see as "cheating"--weren't employed by any hometown pools.  Hepatitis B vaccines weren't quite yet on the agenda either, and defibrillation and oxygen administration were not considered basic training.

There are also subtractions.

The head-chin split for spinal injuries is one of them.  Keeping the forearms firm against spine and sternum is unchanging, but many pools now use a head-cheekbone turn, since the chin is more easily moved when rolling under the victim and turning them skyward.  The new wisdom also entails blocking the nose and mouth while pressing the cheekbones, so that any air bubble in the victim's lungs doesn't collapse with the movement and invite water inside.  So--there is a bit of unlearning to do on a technique than can paralyze or kill if done incorrectly.

Needless to say, I am a ball of well-earned anxiety.

Although I quite fervently wish to pass this class, I will no longer hate myself if I do not.

I have checked-in with a former self and brought her to the fore, rather than proving myself as strong as I was then.  I have done something that frightens me, and have not turned away.

If I fail the final written and practical tests almost upon me, I will nonetheless feel more greatly useful, more capable; brushed-up and curried too.  Too much so, to see it as a waste of my time.  

Lo, I have learned to administer oxygen straight from the cylinder.

...It's simple, but my level of excitement over it approaches the juvenile.

1. Be sure that the label is marked oxygen.

Hee.

While such positive feelings exist, it's prudent that I go study.

previous - next