Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy1999  That would be wonderful, Michael Phelps could bring lots of awareness to the problem. My own "little brother" was a lifeguard at a lake, where they only had one lifeguard, and the beach club sold alcohol! He tried to save a young man who had been drinking, but couldn't resuscitate him. That had a lifelong impact on his life as well, so it works both ways! I think that people get an unfounded sense of safety when they hear the word "lifeguard, so much of the time, your just breaking up fights or stopping stupid behavior, it's hard to keep your eye tuned to see those in distress as well. |
Definitely! Drinking and water do not mix for sure. People do put too much trust in lifeguards, as we found out. The sad thing is... we went through an 8 day trial in which 8 jurors unanimously declared the pool company (not the guards) guilty of gross negligence and every single guard except one got on that witness stand like it was NO big deal. All kinda shrugging their shoulders, "oh well a kid died" attitude. It's really sad that it's come to that. My little brother's life was lost and our family is still suffering, and these people are just like "eh, it was just a fun summer job with my friends, I never expected anyone to die." One "lifeguard" was angry because he had to miss a football college game to be at our trial and testify. The owner of the pool mgt. company actually stated on the witness stand they had zero responsbility for the safety of the children in the pool and basically blamed it on Connor himself and the patrons of the pool who didn't see him either. My mother was sooo overprotective people made fun of her. This was ONE TIME she gave in and let Connor go to the pool with a close family friend and this happens. He is not a father himself and was with 2 other young children (his girlfriends kids) so who knows what happened exactly. My mom lives with that guilt every day though of allowing him to go to the pool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by salazark I just read about Connor and the foundation. What a great thing to make something positive from such a tragedy. My son swam in college and was a lifeguard/swim coach. I agree that there isn't enough training or maturity in so many of the summer pools. I applaud what your family is doing. |
Thank you.
Now that we're WAY off topic.... LOL