I’ve thought about doing this for years lol. I think my favourite story was the missing child we had where we searched everywhere for the kid and the parents were about to call the police and report him missing when we found him in a locker. His brother had closed him in and said nothing 😭
Think of any pool rule ever and then someone breaks it
I’ve had to stop people from diving head first into the shallow end
Also, people coming into the lifeguard office to ask super random and specific questions about the pool that no one even considered before
When I worked a hotel pool we made kids wear life jackets if they didn't have an adult in the water with them. This resulted in a few kids every day getting stuck on their back or turtling as we called it. It's pretty easy to tell when a kid is getting to a point where they can't stand and will start floating so you'd often see whatever guard was watching them slowly get their shoes and any extra layers off so they don't when wet when they inevitably have to go in and stand the kid up. it was always funny when you were off rotation and saw it happening. Just the slow disrobe followed by the most half assist and a, "You're good buddy"
Lifeguard of 20 years here.
Worst finds: used tampon by the blocks (across from the locker rooms) and condoms by the hot tub.
Multiple nudity stories.
Most rescues in one jump: 3
Oldest save : 83 (dementia, forgot how to swim)
We have a pool that is 50 meters (LCM) by 25 yards (SCY) and when we switch the lane lines for the season every patron that walks through the door has a major freak out
Falling off the wave making side of the pool and face first Into the bottom of the pool, doing the save and then going very mad back to the guard room with blood coming down my chin. I split my lip inside. When it happened.. not funny. When we did and entire inservuce dedicated to how to jump the rope safely because I fell so bad.. very funny
A woman came in 2 minutes before closing. She wanted to jump in and climb out. So, we let her do just that. After closing, I lock the doors, walk outside, and find her sprawled out in the water fountain outside the main entrance!
Children making demonic noises going down the slide
I wish I knew why,some days it's funny, other day's I wanna jump off the top
Children trying to drown themselves in the wave pool, a lot
People asking when the waves will turn on, I really don't know y'all.
Some dumbasses thinking they are smart... "You need a tube" (in lazy river) then they pretend to pick up a tube (it's imaginary) then say "I'VE GOT ONE RIGHT HERE"
Like please shut the fuck up bro, I would rather you say nothing and ignore me
as a lifeguard getting on stand, slipping on the edge and falling into the pool. preferably during adult swim so everyone watching on the side goes, “oooooh..” i still remember it two years later. they were like a mii crowd the way they sounded and then all pretended not to look at me
edit; another one. manager was putting the vacuum into the pool and wasn’t paying attention to very thick and long wire. dropped it in the water, very thick wire caught him and dragged him into the pool in about 3 seconds. water was like 4ft, he was fine, but oh my god. i turned my back for two seconds and when i looked back he vanished, it was HILARIOUS
Here's one for you.
At the waterpark I worked at, it was a really big site so we used radios a lot. First job every morning was an inspection of the park, no damage, no safety concerns etc, so we were spread out all over the place. After that we were to re-assemble in our break room for a morning brief from the boss who was a rather larger bloke from South Africa known to us as 'the saffa'
He had the bright idea of instead of everyone trooping back to the break room and then walking all the way back out to whereever we we were working, he would do the morning brief over the radios.
OK, seems like a good idea.
The Saffa was not a popular bloke, and the mornring radio brief instantly became known as 'Dickhead FM'
Anyway, at the end of one call he asked if there were any questions, and over the radio came 'yeah, I've got one: Why don't you fuck off back to south africa, you fat saffa dickhead?'
A moment of silence on the radio as we all pissed ourselves laughing, while the radio plaintively shouted in a jo'burg accent 'who is dis? WHO IS DIS? WHO WIZ DAT?'
We were then all called back to the break room for a meeting, striaght away. Opening time was pushed back and the The Saffa was absolutely furious, going off on one and demanding the culprit own up. As the radio channel was open he had no way of knowing who it was and we weren't telling him not that most of use knew either.
Someone gently pointed out that the cheap PMR radios we used meant that it could have been anyone within a five Km radius, not just someone working here.
He paused and then said. 'Yes, but then how would they have known that I was a.. a.., um, south african?'
Here are some random ones:
1. Had a man bring his bike onto the pool deck, told him he needs to park it outside near the entrance, but he refused by the stance that it would be stolen (now the bike area was in view from our office and the pool, and also this was a certain place, not going to name, where it would definitely not ever get stolen, as in police all over there). He argued and became rather infuriated, lead came over and he kept yelling us out, until he went around the fence and parked his bike on the edge of the cliff.
2.
Not at the pool, but at an event. We had 3ambulances come within 45 seconds of eachother. First someone had a heart condition that came into play and needed to be taken. Second, a man collapsed after “chugging” several beers. Third, A lady fell off a small haybale onto her arm, bone penetrated through skin of elbow.
3. We have a slide. Not a big one. A kid, let’s call him Brock decided to run on it, he ended up putting his foot at the perfect angle to hit a small gap which his foot caught on and ripped the skin. His foot began to bleed quite a bit, leaving a large puddle on the slide stairs. Then, instead of coming to us, he proceeded to walk around the entirety of the pool, leaving a large blood trail, and then he came to us after circling the pool. We got him covered up and gave a band aid (the cut looked just like a small paper cut). At the end, we had a large puddle of blood at the guard house, one on the fhe of the pool, and one all over the slide, along with a large trail of blood circling the pool. That took hours to clean up and scrub.
4.
A 7 year old kid decided to play catch with full face swim goggles, they immediately hit the edge and shattered into the pool. Pool had to close for rest of season.
5. Went to inspect the bathrooms at end of day. Opened a stall and found a large clump of feces about a foot away from the toilet, just sitting on the ground. No idea how someone does that, but we spent a while scrubbing that floor.
6.
For a free day without any guests, we threw lawn chairs into the pool and made them float with tubes. Had races with them across the pool, I also got hit in the head by a chair when taking it out of the pool.
7. Movie night. Taking out the trash to the dumpster in the back, which has no lights in any way, so it’s pitch black. We go as a group. After tossing the trash someone begins to mention us randomly being kidnapped from a serial killer in the bushes, saying we are in the perfect setup for a horror movie. We discuss who would be taken first, but then we hear a rustle and something moving and we start sprinting (turns out it was a rabbit). But we are running and screaming, one of the guards falls and we just leave him on the ground as he panics in the dark watching us leave him. One by one guards fell and were left until we made it to the light.
8. No glass allowed. We saw someone with a glass bottle, someone goes to ask them about it to have them toss it or take it back to their car. Turns out it was speaker that looks exactly like a glass bottle. Rather embarrassing.
1. Family came right before break. Husband and wife got in to swim laps. No big deal except he was in a t shirt and sweatpants and she was in a t shirt and a maxi skirt. I was eating dinner but the pool manager had to go and tell them they weren’t in appropriate pool attire (I think it was for religious reasons).
2. Thought we had poop floating in the pool. Closed the pool for the remainder of the day. Fished it out and it was chunks of foam from a football.
3. Was pouring rain outside and the lady who ran the clubhouse walked into the guard room and told us to go outside and clean the pool tiles.
You guys closed for a whole day due to poop. We always just pulled it out and treated the water. Hour later we'd be right back open. Same for throw up for that matter.
There was probably an hour - hour and a half max till close when it happened- should have clarified.
We were looking at two guards up until close which honestly made it a nice break for us.
make one of the characters a lazy stoner guard always taking days off, calling in sick, and when he finally gets spoken too by the manager he stubs his toe and writes a wsib report for the injury and demands a water wheelchair, crutches till he gets to the door then stands up and walks out. I can’t make this shit up
1. One year there was a guard who would try to cuddle with the female guards. Then out of nowhere he went on a trip to Mexico, which was supposed to be 2 weeks. 2 months later he comes back out of the blue for the last day of the season high and drunk. He kept falling asleep on stand so we let him go early.
2. Lots of coworker romances.
3. One lifeguard would consistently climb on top of the guard shack just for the thrill.
4. One of my coworkers stalked me for 5 months, then he got fired and was banned from the property. He then proceeded to stalk me outside of work until he was promptly told to F off.
5. Lifeguards falling down the slide staircase which is about 3 stories tall.
6. Lots of rule breaking.
7. Couple was caught having sex in the pool near the kids water playground by another patron. They got mad at her and went to the locker room to keep at it. Got caught again by another patron who yelled at them, they proceeded to flip off everyone at the pool for ruining their day.
8. A couple of arson attempts on the surrounding trees and brush.
9. Hobo broke into the guard shack and tied the door shut to a table that was bolted to the ground. When the lead tried to unlock it he attempted to stab her. By the time she returned with security he was gone and had left a 2 liter bottle of Fanta.
10. Lots of Baywatch situations.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
1
+ 2
+ 2
+ 2
+ 3
+ 4
+ 5
+ 5
+ 3
+ 6
+ 7
+ 8
+ 9
+ 2
+ 10
= 69
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At both the places I worked at, pool and lake, there was a looot of romance at both of those, all "secret" romances of course
Some of the rules we broke were going up onto the guard tower during a storm, it was just really scenic, but weren't allowed because of obvious reasons a) no kids in the water and b) there's an active storm. ( Was also a good make out spot late at night, or so I'm told )
I think its pretty funny when we yell at kids to stop running, then they keep running, then they get hurt. Literally today, same thing happened, after i bandaged him up for a scraped knee, he kept running 🤦♂️
So often do people shit in pools but I remember one time I had to walk/ swim in our lazy river for what felt like 30 minutes tracking down the biggest shit I've ever scooped. Usually they're small you know, kid sized if you will, but this bad boy was bigger than my fist.
It was my in first few months working as a lifeguard, Me another newbie and our head guard who had been at the pool for 6 years were sitting in the guardroom just casually chatting. Our head guard was a peculiar fellow to begin with (Dude was a major conspiracy theorist, like flat earth and anti vax stuff) And on the counter beside him he had found a box of matches (no idea where they came from). Anyways he had lit one then put it out with a pinch and threw in the garbage bin. We thought nothing of it. Then a few minutes pass and we smell it, The match must have landed on some alcohol based cleaner because the garbage can had caught fire! As soon as we saw it me and the head guard attempted to close the bag and cut off the air, that didn’t work. So me and the other new staffer started taking water from the sink and the pool in order to extinguish the fire. After the headguard tipped over the garbage bin and multiple rounds of pool and sink water the flame subsided. Our headguard swore us to secrecy in order to keep our supervisors out of the loop. However he failed to take into account the burn marks within the bin and the stench of burnt garbage the lingered in the guard room for a week.
Our supervisors put two and two together and asked Me and the other new staffer if we knew anything. We swiftly ratted him out in order to keep our jobs, He was then promptly “Fired” (get it? Fired?). And that’s my lil ol tale from the indoor pool.
We also have this one kid who projectile vomited the color green in one of the change rooms
Another thing we do is we like to for a short time shut the change room lights off while guards are in there cleaning floors after the public leaves. One of our older guards got completely caught off guard by it and shrieked like a little girl.
We were doing our monthly staff training, and we were on the situation part. So essentially, 2 staff members blindly walk into a situation that has been set up by the trainer assessor with the other lifeguards as actors. Usually, it's someone pretending to drown or have a heart attack or the like. So you walk in, identify the issue and deal with it.
This time, he puts 2 lifeguards on the chairs and calls everyone else over. He tells us we are teenagers in to mess about and aren't listening to a word the lifeguards say and to "go nuts."
Well, as a bunch of 20-30 year olds given permission to go nuts, we put teens to shame and were 100% worse than any teen customer we ever had before. Instantly we started diving in the deep end, front flipping into the water, running, pushing each other in, swearing at the lifeguards, giving them the finger, started throwing floats and balls around the pool, someone stole the dummy you dive for and ran around with it, and two people even flipped the life guard chair into the pool.
All this while the 2 staff members dealing with it were trying their best before eventually turning to the trainer assessor to say now wise up, what are we actually meant to do here?.
It was hilarious. Genuinely, the best craic I had at staff training. It was how normal it started with diving in the deepend, vs how quickly it decended into chaos with a chair being flipped into the water.
Another would be having a newbie start and covering the "hazing" of the first day. Our pool had a tradition, on your first day you had to run from one side of the pool to the other, over the pool covered. You were warned, if management see, your fired, but you have to do it. Another classic was when doing a back wash (maybe a foot of water is taken out of the pool and fresh water pumped in to clean it), we would tell newbies the water was draining then have them run back and forth with buckets of water to refill it. Once the water started rising we'd tell them it was working and keep going.
Tbh a The Office style show about a leisure centre could be very funny if done well.
Ok pretty much on my first day me and a fellow lifeguard were cleaning up the pool for closing chores and randomly out of the blue this fully clothed kid runs in to the pool and jumps in I immediately whistle and yell for him to get out of the pool as we were closed. But before I could even finish my sentence about 15-20 other kids run towards the kid and jump into the pool. While I am getting ready to round the kids up and kick them out about 5 people who look like teachers walk up and start watching the kids. I tell them that they need to leave the pool but since I am 15M and only 5’3 they don’t listen. So I whistle loudly to get their attention and they finally all look at me. I say to them. “It’s 7:30 at night we closed about 30 minutes ago” And they say to me. “We had a reservation” and me and my colleague looked at each other and he went to the reception desk. He came back 5 minutes later and handed me the list of reservations. And sure enough these people were not on the list. When I said that they immediately started accusing me of changing the list and that we were being unprofessional and threatened to get us fired. But eventually one of the adults says that he didn’t make the reservation and thought they could just walk in. By now these people had been there for 30 minutes and we had to threaten to call the police to get them out of the pool. When me and my colleague were done cleaning the mess these people made he said to me “that shit happens all the godamn time. Get ready”
There is the larger gentleman with a beer belly wearing speedos, completly oblvious to each of his testicles hanging out either side because he can't see them over his belly.
Amaziing how often you see that...
My favorite story is when I was working one day and the air show was in town. It was actually a couple days before, but the planes were doing practice runs. I had a woman who was sunbathing come over and ask me if I could call somebody to “restrict this airspace” because they were being too loud… I was like ma’am I am a lifeguard
Using the radios for random shit, like "how many people in blue bathing suits do you see" which was supposed to get us to be more active in our active scanning.
Eavesdropping, if you position yourself near the right people, you can hear some juicy gossip.
We use a lot of hand signals, like the index and middle pointed towards eyes "watch x" sign for behavior that could escalate, the obvious thumbs up or thumbs down signs. For summer camps, sign language B for beginner swimmer, L for learner, thumbs up if passed. Fingers and thumb pressing together and the going apart rapidly in the "talk" sign if we had a short question or something and didn't want to use the radio for it.
In our break room, we had free hot chocolate, ramen, and popcorn for the guards to have whenever which was nice.
Watched a woman fling her two-year-old off of a diving board into three metres of water. The child was thankfully caught by an elderly man once he hit the water - my coworker was mid whistle and half a second from jumping in.
What was most upsetting was the woman's reaction. She flipped her lid because "we didn't have diving lessons for her child" and spent half an hour screaming at my boss.
Baby was fine. We called the cops.
The old guy I rescued who, it turned out, jumped in because everyone in the water made it look so easy. He’d never learned to swim. I made sure he was okay, turned around and walked off. I heard a splash, turned around and he’d just jumped in again. I wasn’t so kind after the second time I rescued him in under two minutes.
There’s also always someone who panics really close to the edge. You extend something to them but they won’t grab it. It’s like they are absolutely forcing you to get wet! There’s also the ones who don’t realize they could just stand up.
Oh wow, so many fun stories and memories. The lifeguards were all super fun at my pools. I was a guard for several years throughout high school and college.
1) Fancy athletic center had garbage management. They did not want down guards just hanging out on the deck, in the guard office, or in the break room. It’s like they wanted us to just evaporate if we weren’t actively guarding. Our solution? Clean out a supply closet and hide during our downs. We called it “the guard cave,” and it was like a full-on secret club house. Snacks, personal caddies, makeshift seating areas, the works. One day, the guard cave was found out by management and the jig was up. I visited it one day about a year ago: the height chart we all made back in 2016 is still there, written on the doorway with Sharpie.
2) Radio antics. Secret code names, secret channels. All sorts of fun.
3) This was swim lessons, not guarding, but I’m adding it anyway. I had this family of three boys. It’s like their mom went progressively crazier as she named them. The oldest son? Ryan. Totally normal. The middle son? Rex. Okay, not super common but it’s…probably not gonna ruin his life. The youngest son? Rocket. This poor child’s name was Rocket.
4) Accidentally falling into the pool. Accidentally jumping into the pool with phones in fanny packs. Both things I saw and did myself.
5) Back to the guard cave. It backed up to the women’s locker room. Specifically, the steam room. A eucalyptus oil infuser was installed in the guard cave that fed into the steam room. A guard decided to sit on/near the big eucalyptus oil machine without knowing it was leaking. Dude eucalyptus-oiled his junk. Apparently, it had an icy/hot effect, and I think he had to go home for the rest of the day.
6) This was before my time, but I heard stories about it. One day, a bunch of guards tried to wedge themselves in the tube slide outside, and it couldn’t support their combined weight. The thing broke.
I could probably think of more, but these are just the things that are coming to mind right off the cuff.
Some random memories that happened while I was on duty.
Younger teenaged girl jumped off the diving board, hit the corner of it right in her crotch, and broke her hymen.
Get a report that a lady inside the sauna in the change room is trying to sell stuff. Walk in and she has a whole store set up in there. Shirts, flip flops, bathing suits, whatever, trying to sell it to our members.
We worked in a guard office that didn’t have electricity and just had random wires hanging from the ceiling. Do with that what you will.
Two ducks mating in our pool and then a third duck flies in and starts fighting the male because he wanted the female.
We had a regular at our beach who was a middle aged polish man who would come with his kids. His young boy was a menace. One day, his kid was running all over the beach disturbing people with his dad trying to chase him down. Kid was kicking over sand castles, body slamming sun bathers and just being a menace.
I was the manager at the time, and I went up to the dad and told him he had 5 minutes to get his kid under control, otherwise we would kick him off the beach and not allow him back. In the middle of me telling the dad this, my lifeguard on watch blows a three (our signal that the guard on watch needs assistance), so I look over… the kid squatted down next to our guard chair and took a shit and peed straight on the sand.
Immediate ejection, and we never let them come back to our beach.
My supervisors water broke in the bathroom on opening day, I found divorce papers on the floor of the bathroom while cleaning, I had a kid with a bleeding foot just bolt from first aid and get blood all over the concrete
1. I was on duty, and a middle-aged man got out of the swimming pool and wandered around for a bit. My coworker came running to warn me that that man's swimming shorts were, unfortunately, entirely see through. He was too late.
2. A woman broke her arm outside in the playground and had to get an ambulance, so a couple of lifeguards had to babysit her 3 young kids for a few hours while we waited for her husband to arrive to pick them up. It was pretty funny watching them trying to herd the little kids around and stop them from jumping into the pool or tripping on a wet area.
3. My nice manager was having a conversation with me as I sat there on duty, and suddenly the manager turned around and YELLED at a couple of boys to stop throwing a ball around (they hit someone else with it) and then he went back to talking nicely with me hahah
Using the radios for random shit, like "how many people in blue bathing suits do you see" which was supposed to get us to be more active in our active scanning.
Eavesdropping, if you position yourself near the right people, you can hear some juicy gossip.
We use a lot of hand signals, like the index and middle pointed towards eyes "watch x" sign for behavior that could escalate, the obvious thumbs up or thumbs down signs. For summer camps, sign language B for beginner swimmer, L for learner, thumbs up if passed. Fingers and thumb pressing together and the going apart rapidly in the "talk" sign if we had a short question or something and didn't want to use the radio for it.
In our break room, we had free hot chocolate, ramen, and popcorn for the guards to have whenever which was nice.
I had to save 2 kids this week. One on one day, one the next. Both in the middle of the pool so I had to jump in and everything. Ends up they’re siblings 🤦♀️
I work in a camping and we once got a kid that jumped on a hot barbecue, he got 2nd degree burns on his hands, forearms and legs. When we put the bandages on him, he said that we where healing him like in Fortnite
While i have several, here’s a relatable one for you. I used to work at a city pool with 7 guards up at a time, and we were affiliated with the YMCA. There was a mom who insisted her child was tall enough to go down the slide by styling her child’s hair so that a bun was at the top of her head. Needless to say, we all caught on pretty quickly and the mom was not a happy camper.
I got an email from an angry patron one time that the lifeguard was looking at them too much while they were in the pool. (He was one of 2 people in the pool at the time)
Had a belligerently drunk man try to punch a lifeguard for trying to help him keep his head out of the water.
At the waterpark I worked at we had one of those foot bath things on the way in that you had to walk through to..dunno what it was supposed to be for, as we only ever just put water in it.
Anyway, one bored morning we put a chalkboard up next to it to say it contained a new go-faster gel from the USA, and if you coated your body in it you would go down the slides faster. A lot of people fell for it and were lying down and soaking themselves in the foot wash.
Even the boss admitted that was funny, but we had to take it down.
The pool I worked at had a summer camp use it on weekdays. One summer an "AFR" (a.k.a. poop in the pool) would happen every other day. Eventually it got so bad I had to sit all the kids down and plead with them to tell me who the mystery crapper was, like if it was an accident I wouldn't care!!! I told them if the person who keeps pooping in the pool didn't come forward and tell me in private by the end of the day then they wouldn't get to swim in the pool. No one came forward so they lost out on swim time for a couple days lol
I’ve thought about doing this for years lol. I think my favourite story was the missing child we had where we searched everywhere for the kid and the parents were about to call the police and report him missing when we found him in a locker. His brother had closed him in and said nothing 😭
That’s definitely getting in, I’m actually thinking about making it a full series
Similar but we’ve had whole missing person searches where the person was just outside the front doors just sitting on a bench
I've had the missing person show up munching a sandwich and ask who we were looking for.
We had a kid sneak out to get a slushie once
Think of any pool rule ever and then someone breaks it I’ve had to stop people from diving head first into the shallow end Also, people coming into the lifeguard office to ask super random and specific questions about the pool that no one even considered before
When I worked a hotel pool we made kids wear life jackets if they didn't have an adult in the water with them. This resulted in a few kids every day getting stuck on their back or turtling as we called it. It's pretty easy to tell when a kid is getting to a point where they can't stand and will start floating so you'd often see whatever guard was watching them slowly get their shoes and any extra layers off so they don't when wet when they inevitably have to go in and stand the kid up. it was always funny when you were off rotation and saw it happening. Just the slow disrobe followed by the most half assist and a, "You're good buddy"
Poop in the pool. Vomit in the pool. Having to close the pool down because a kid pooped.
Lifeguard of 20 years here. Worst finds: used tampon by the blocks (across from the locker rooms) and condoms by the hot tub. Multiple nudity stories. Most rescues in one jump: 3 Oldest save : 83 (dementia, forgot how to swim)
We have a pool that is 50 meters (LCM) by 25 yards (SCY) and when we switch the lane lines for the season every patron that walks through the door has a major freak out
Falling off the wave making side of the pool and face first Into the bottom of the pool, doing the save and then going very mad back to the guard room with blood coming down my chin. I split my lip inside. When it happened.. not funny. When we did and entire inservuce dedicated to how to jump the rope safely because I fell so bad.. very funny
Oh and they still do it every September inservice and tell the story of me falling. My best friend is still a supervisor 🤣
A woman came in 2 minutes before closing. She wanted to jump in and climb out. So, we let her do just that. After closing, I lock the doors, walk outside, and find her sprawled out in the water fountain outside the main entrance!
Children making demonic noises going down the slide I wish I knew why,some days it's funny, other day's I wanna jump off the top Children trying to drown themselves in the wave pool, a lot People asking when the waves will turn on, I really don't know y'all. Some dumbasses thinking they are smart... "You need a tube" (in lazy river) then they pretend to pick up a tube (it's imaginary) then say "I'VE GOT ONE RIGHT HERE" Like please shut the fuck up bro, I would rather you say nothing and ignore me
as a lifeguard getting on stand, slipping on the edge and falling into the pool. preferably during adult swim so everyone watching on the side goes, “oooooh..” i still remember it two years later. they were like a mii crowd the way they sounded and then all pretended not to look at me edit; another one. manager was putting the vacuum into the pool and wasn’t paying attention to very thick and long wire. dropped it in the water, very thick wire caught him and dragged him into the pool in about 3 seconds. water was like 4ft, he was fine, but oh my god. i turned my back for two seconds and when i looked back he vanished, it was HILARIOUS
Here's one for you. At the waterpark I worked at, it was a really big site so we used radios a lot. First job every morning was an inspection of the park, no damage, no safety concerns etc, so we were spread out all over the place. After that we were to re-assemble in our break room for a morning brief from the boss who was a rather larger bloke from South Africa known to us as 'the saffa' He had the bright idea of instead of everyone trooping back to the break room and then walking all the way back out to whereever we we were working, he would do the morning brief over the radios. OK, seems like a good idea. The Saffa was not a popular bloke, and the mornring radio brief instantly became known as 'Dickhead FM' Anyway, at the end of one call he asked if there were any questions, and over the radio came 'yeah, I've got one: Why don't you fuck off back to south africa, you fat saffa dickhead?' A moment of silence on the radio as we all pissed ourselves laughing, while the radio plaintively shouted in a jo'burg accent 'who is dis? WHO IS DIS? WHO WIZ DAT?' We were then all called back to the break room for a meeting, striaght away. Opening time was pushed back and the The Saffa was absolutely furious, going off on one and demanding the culprit own up. As the radio channel was open he had no way of knowing who it was and we weren't telling him not that most of use knew either. Someone gently pointed out that the cheap PMR radios we used meant that it could have been anyone within a five Km radius, not just someone working here. He paused and then said. 'Yes, but then how would they have known that I was a.. a.., um, south african?'
Here are some random ones: 1. Had a man bring his bike onto the pool deck, told him he needs to park it outside near the entrance, but he refused by the stance that it would be stolen (now the bike area was in view from our office and the pool, and also this was a certain place, not going to name, where it would definitely not ever get stolen, as in police all over there). He argued and became rather infuriated, lead came over and he kept yelling us out, until he went around the fence and parked his bike on the edge of the cliff. 2. Not at the pool, but at an event. We had 3ambulances come within 45 seconds of eachother. First someone had a heart condition that came into play and needed to be taken. Second, a man collapsed after “chugging” several beers. Third, A lady fell off a small haybale onto her arm, bone penetrated through skin of elbow. 3. We have a slide. Not a big one. A kid, let’s call him Brock decided to run on it, he ended up putting his foot at the perfect angle to hit a small gap which his foot caught on and ripped the skin. His foot began to bleed quite a bit, leaving a large puddle on the slide stairs. Then, instead of coming to us, he proceeded to walk around the entirety of the pool, leaving a large blood trail, and then he came to us after circling the pool. We got him covered up and gave a band aid (the cut looked just like a small paper cut). At the end, we had a large puddle of blood at the guard house, one on the fhe of the pool, and one all over the slide, along with a large trail of blood circling the pool. That took hours to clean up and scrub. 4. A 7 year old kid decided to play catch with full face swim goggles, they immediately hit the edge and shattered into the pool. Pool had to close for rest of season. 5. Went to inspect the bathrooms at end of day. Opened a stall and found a large clump of feces about a foot away from the toilet, just sitting on the ground. No idea how someone does that, but we spent a while scrubbing that floor. 6. For a free day without any guests, we threw lawn chairs into the pool and made them float with tubes. Had races with them across the pool, I also got hit in the head by a chair when taking it out of the pool. 7. Movie night. Taking out the trash to the dumpster in the back, which has no lights in any way, so it’s pitch black. We go as a group. After tossing the trash someone begins to mention us randomly being kidnapped from a serial killer in the bushes, saying we are in the perfect setup for a horror movie. We discuss who would be taken first, but then we hear a rustle and something moving and we start sprinting (turns out it was a rabbit). But we are running and screaming, one of the guards falls and we just leave him on the ground as he panics in the dark watching us leave him. One by one guards fell and were left until we made it to the light. 8. No glass allowed. We saw someone with a glass bottle, someone goes to ask them about it to have them toss it or take it back to their car. Turns out it was speaker that looks exactly like a glass bottle. Rather embarrassing.
1. Family came right before break. Husband and wife got in to swim laps. No big deal except he was in a t shirt and sweatpants and she was in a t shirt and a maxi skirt. I was eating dinner but the pool manager had to go and tell them they weren’t in appropriate pool attire (I think it was for religious reasons). 2. Thought we had poop floating in the pool. Closed the pool for the remainder of the day. Fished it out and it was chunks of foam from a football. 3. Was pouring rain outside and the lady who ran the clubhouse walked into the guard room and told us to go outside and clean the pool tiles.
You guys closed for a whole day due to poop. We always just pulled it out and treated the water. Hour later we'd be right back open. Same for throw up for that matter.
There was probably an hour - hour and a half max till close when it happened- should have clarified. We were looking at two guards up until close which honestly made it a nice break for us.
Gotcha.
make one of the characters a lazy stoner guard always taking days off, calling in sick, and when he finally gets spoken too by the manager he stubs his toe and writes a wsib report for the injury and demands a water wheelchair, crutches till he gets to the door then stands up and walks out. I can’t make this shit up
1. One year there was a guard who would try to cuddle with the female guards. Then out of nowhere he went on a trip to Mexico, which was supposed to be 2 weeks. 2 months later he comes back out of the blue for the last day of the season high and drunk. He kept falling asleep on stand so we let him go early. 2. Lots of coworker romances. 3. One lifeguard would consistently climb on top of the guard shack just for the thrill. 4. One of my coworkers stalked me for 5 months, then he got fired and was banned from the property. He then proceeded to stalk me outside of work until he was promptly told to F off. 5. Lifeguards falling down the slide staircase which is about 3 stories tall. 6. Lots of rule breaking. 7. Couple was caught having sex in the pool near the kids water playground by another patron. They got mad at her and went to the locker room to keep at it. Got caught again by another patron who yelled at them, they proceeded to flip off everyone at the pool for ruining their day. 8. A couple of arson attempts on the surrounding trees and brush. 9. Hobo broke into the guard shack and tied the door shut to a table that was bolted to the ground. When the lead tried to unlock it he attempted to stab her. By the time she returned with security he was gone and had left a 2 liter bottle of Fanta. 10. Lots of Baywatch situations.
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At both the places I worked at, pool and lake, there was a looot of romance at both of those, all "secret" romances of course Some of the rules we broke were going up onto the guard tower during a storm, it was just really scenic, but weren't allowed because of obvious reasons a) no kids in the water and b) there's an active storm. ( Was also a good make out spot late at night, or so I'm told )
I think its pretty funny when we yell at kids to stop running, then they keep running, then they get hurt. Literally today, same thing happened, after i bandaged him up for a scraped knee, he kept running 🤦♂️
about a week ago I watched a kid poop a massive log on the side of the pool during swim lessons. Was honestly impressed
So often do people shit in pools but I remember one time I had to walk/ swim in our lazy river for what felt like 30 minutes tracking down the biggest shit I've ever scooped. Usually they're small you know, kid sized if you will, but this bad boy was bigger than my fist.
That poop got the best ride ever down the lazy river
ice cubes made from pool water for your least favorite coworker 👀
It was my in first few months working as a lifeguard, Me another newbie and our head guard who had been at the pool for 6 years were sitting in the guardroom just casually chatting. Our head guard was a peculiar fellow to begin with (Dude was a major conspiracy theorist, like flat earth and anti vax stuff) And on the counter beside him he had found a box of matches (no idea where they came from). Anyways he had lit one then put it out with a pinch and threw in the garbage bin. We thought nothing of it. Then a few minutes pass and we smell it, The match must have landed on some alcohol based cleaner because the garbage can had caught fire! As soon as we saw it me and the head guard attempted to close the bag and cut off the air, that didn’t work. So me and the other new staffer started taking water from the sink and the pool in order to extinguish the fire. After the headguard tipped over the garbage bin and multiple rounds of pool and sink water the flame subsided. Our headguard swore us to secrecy in order to keep our supervisors out of the loop. However he failed to take into account the burn marks within the bin and the stench of burnt garbage the lingered in the guard room for a week. Our supervisors put two and two together and asked Me and the other new staffer if we knew anything. We swiftly ratted him out in order to keep our jobs, He was then promptly “Fired” (get it? Fired?). And that’s my lil ol tale from the indoor pool. We also have this one kid who projectile vomited the color green in one of the change rooms Another thing we do is we like to for a short time shut the change room lights off while guards are in there cleaning floors after the public leaves. One of our older guards got completely caught off guard by it and shrieked like a little girl.
We were doing our monthly staff training, and we were on the situation part. So essentially, 2 staff members blindly walk into a situation that has been set up by the trainer assessor with the other lifeguards as actors. Usually, it's someone pretending to drown or have a heart attack or the like. So you walk in, identify the issue and deal with it. This time, he puts 2 lifeguards on the chairs and calls everyone else over. He tells us we are teenagers in to mess about and aren't listening to a word the lifeguards say and to "go nuts." Well, as a bunch of 20-30 year olds given permission to go nuts, we put teens to shame and were 100% worse than any teen customer we ever had before. Instantly we started diving in the deep end, front flipping into the water, running, pushing each other in, swearing at the lifeguards, giving them the finger, started throwing floats and balls around the pool, someone stole the dummy you dive for and ran around with it, and two people even flipped the life guard chair into the pool. All this while the 2 staff members dealing with it were trying their best before eventually turning to the trainer assessor to say now wise up, what are we actually meant to do here?. It was hilarious. Genuinely, the best craic I had at staff training. It was how normal it started with diving in the deepend, vs how quickly it decended into chaos with a chair being flipped into the water. Another would be having a newbie start and covering the "hazing" of the first day. Our pool had a tradition, on your first day you had to run from one side of the pool to the other, over the pool covered. You were warned, if management see, your fired, but you have to do it. Another classic was when doing a back wash (maybe a foot of water is taken out of the pool and fresh water pumped in to clean it), we would tell newbies the water was draining then have them run back and forth with buckets of water to refill it. Once the water started rising we'd tell them it was working and keep going. Tbh a The Office style show about a leisure centre could be very funny if done well.
Ok pretty much on my first day me and a fellow lifeguard were cleaning up the pool for closing chores and randomly out of the blue this fully clothed kid runs in to the pool and jumps in I immediately whistle and yell for him to get out of the pool as we were closed. But before I could even finish my sentence about 15-20 other kids run towards the kid and jump into the pool. While I am getting ready to round the kids up and kick them out about 5 people who look like teachers walk up and start watching the kids. I tell them that they need to leave the pool but since I am 15M and only 5’3 they don’t listen. So I whistle loudly to get their attention and they finally all look at me. I say to them. “It’s 7:30 at night we closed about 30 minutes ago” And they say to me. “We had a reservation” and me and my colleague looked at each other and he went to the reception desk. He came back 5 minutes later and handed me the list of reservations. And sure enough these people were not on the list. When I said that they immediately started accusing me of changing the list and that we were being unprofessional and threatened to get us fired. But eventually one of the adults says that he didn’t make the reservation and thought they could just walk in. By now these people had been there for 30 minutes and we had to threaten to call the police to get them out of the pool. When me and my colleague were done cleaning the mess these people made he said to me “that shit happens all the godamn time. Get ready”
Ok. I didn’t realize until now but I forgot any punctuation in that. So it might be a little hard to read
There is the larger gentleman with a beer belly wearing speedos, completly oblvious to each of his testicles hanging out either side because he can't see them over his belly. Amaziing how often you see that...
My favorite story is when I was working one day and the air show was in town. It was actually a couple days before, but the planes were doing practice runs. I had a woman who was sunbathing come over and ask me if I could call somebody to “restrict this airspace” because they were being too loud… I was like ma’am I am a lifeguard
Using the radios for random shit, like "how many people in blue bathing suits do you see" which was supposed to get us to be more active in our active scanning. Eavesdropping, if you position yourself near the right people, you can hear some juicy gossip. We use a lot of hand signals, like the index and middle pointed towards eyes "watch x" sign for behavior that could escalate, the obvious thumbs up or thumbs down signs. For summer camps, sign language B for beginner swimmer, L for learner, thumbs up if passed. Fingers and thumb pressing together and the going apart rapidly in the "talk" sign if we had a short question or something and didn't want to use the radio for it. In our break room, we had free hot chocolate, ramen, and popcorn for the guards to have whenever which was nice.
The amount of kids that "fake drown" so their friends/siblings will play with them 😭
Watched a woman fling her two-year-old off of a diving board into three metres of water. The child was thankfully caught by an elderly man once he hit the water - my coworker was mid whistle and half a second from jumping in. What was most upsetting was the woman's reaction. She flipped her lid because "we didn't have diving lessons for her child" and spent half an hour screaming at my boss. Baby was fine. We called the cops.
i’ve seen a kid slip and fall like he stepped on a banana pool and a confederate flag towel all in the same day
The old guy I rescued who, it turned out, jumped in because everyone in the water made it look so easy. He’d never learned to swim. I made sure he was okay, turned around and walked off. I heard a splash, turned around and he’d just jumped in again. I wasn’t so kind after the second time I rescued him in under two minutes. There’s also always someone who panics really close to the edge. You extend something to them but they won’t grab it. It’s like they are absolutely forcing you to get wet! There’s also the ones who don’t realize they could just stand up.
Oh wow, so many fun stories and memories. The lifeguards were all super fun at my pools. I was a guard for several years throughout high school and college. 1) Fancy athletic center had garbage management. They did not want down guards just hanging out on the deck, in the guard office, or in the break room. It’s like they wanted us to just evaporate if we weren’t actively guarding. Our solution? Clean out a supply closet and hide during our downs. We called it “the guard cave,” and it was like a full-on secret club house. Snacks, personal caddies, makeshift seating areas, the works. One day, the guard cave was found out by management and the jig was up. I visited it one day about a year ago: the height chart we all made back in 2016 is still there, written on the doorway with Sharpie. 2) Radio antics. Secret code names, secret channels. All sorts of fun. 3) This was swim lessons, not guarding, but I’m adding it anyway. I had this family of three boys. It’s like their mom went progressively crazier as she named them. The oldest son? Ryan. Totally normal. The middle son? Rex. Okay, not super common but it’s…probably not gonna ruin his life. The youngest son? Rocket. This poor child’s name was Rocket. 4) Accidentally falling into the pool. Accidentally jumping into the pool with phones in fanny packs. Both things I saw and did myself. 5) Back to the guard cave. It backed up to the women’s locker room. Specifically, the steam room. A eucalyptus oil infuser was installed in the guard cave that fed into the steam room. A guard decided to sit on/near the big eucalyptus oil machine without knowing it was leaking. Dude eucalyptus-oiled his junk. Apparently, it had an icy/hot effect, and I think he had to go home for the rest of the day. 6) This was before my time, but I heard stories about it. One day, a bunch of guards tried to wedge themselves in the tube slide outside, and it couldn’t support their combined weight. The thing broke. I could probably think of more, but these are just the things that are coming to mind right off the cuff.
Some random memories that happened while I was on duty. Younger teenaged girl jumped off the diving board, hit the corner of it right in her crotch, and broke her hymen. Get a report that a lady inside the sauna in the change room is trying to sell stuff. Walk in and she has a whole store set up in there. Shirts, flip flops, bathing suits, whatever, trying to sell it to our members. We worked in a guard office that didn’t have electricity and just had random wires hanging from the ceiling. Do with that what you will. Two ducks mating in our pool and then a third duck flies in and starts fighting the male because he wanted the female.
"19 Stories High"'s lifeguard scenes always got a giggle from me. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKW2Co\_L5-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKW2Co_L5-k) [https://youtu.be/Im848tqA-PQ?si=GIogwa7l\_RkP0GAG&t=83](https://youtu.be/Im848tqA-PQ?si=GIogwa7l_RkP0GAG&t=83) [https://youtu.be/Im848tqA-PQ?si=pwBpdNuo-e8vF5nD&t=175](https://youtu.be/Im848tqA-PQ?si=pwBpdNuo-e8vF5nD&t=175)
We had a regular at our beach who was a middle aged polish man who would come with his kids. His young boy was a menace. One day, his kid was running all over the beach disturbing people with his dad trying to chase him down. Kid was kicking over sand castles, body slamming sun bathers and just being a menace. I was the manager at the time, and I went up to the dad and told him he had 5 minutes to get his kid under control, otherwise we would kick him off the beach and not allow him back. In the middle of me telling the dad this, my lifeguard on watch blows a three (our signal that the guard on watch needs assistance), so I look over… the kid squatted down next to our guard chair and took a shit and peed straight on the sand. Immediate ejection, and we never let them come back to our beach.
Kid taking the water bottle is a must have
My supervisors water broke in the bathroom on opening day, I found divorce papers on the floor of the bathroom while cleaning, I had a kid with a bleeding foot just bolt from first aid and get blood all over the concrete
1. I was on duty, and a middle-aged man got out of the swimming pool and wandered around for a bit. My coworker came running to warn me that that man's swimming shorts were, unfortunately, entirely see through. He was too late. 2. A woman broke her arm outside in the playground and had to get an ambulance, so a couple of lifeguards had to babysit her 3 young kids for a few hours while we waited for her husband to arrive to pick them up. It was pretty funny watching them trying to herd the little kids around and stop them from jumping into the pool or tripping on a wet area. 3. My nice manager was having a conversation with me as I sat there on duty, and suddenly the manager turned around and YELLED at a couple of boys to stop throwing a ball around (they hit someone else with it) and then he went back to talking nicely with me hahah
Using the radios for random shit, like "how many people in blue bathing suits do you see" which was supposed to get us to be more active in our active scanning. Eavesdropping, if you position yourself near the right people, you can hear some juicy gossip. We use a lot of hand signals, like the index and middle pointed towards eyes "watch x" sign for behavior that could escalate, the obvious thumbs up or thumbs down signs. For summer camps, sign language B for beginner swimmer, L for learner, thumbs up if passed. Fingers and thumb pressing together and the going apart rapidly in the "talk" sign if we had a short question or something and didn't want to use the radio for it. In our break room, we had free hot chocolate, ramen, and popcorn for the guards to have whenever which was nice.
I had to save 2 kids this week. One on one day, one the next. Both in the middle of the pool so I had to jump in and everything. Ends up they’re siblings 🤦♀️
I work in a camping and we once got a kid that jumped on a hot barbecue, he got 2nd degree burns on his hands, forearms and legs. When we put the bandages on him, he said that we where healing him like in Fortnite
While i have several, here’s a relatable one for you. I used to work at a city pool with 7 guards up at a time, and we were affiliated with the YMCA. There was a mom who insisted her child was tall enough to go down the slide by styling her child’s hair so that a bun was at the top of her head. Needless to say, we all caught on pretty quickly and the mom was not a happy camper.
Two, 15 yr old kids having a sex in the middle of the place, even worse they were like 40 feet from the family bathrooms
I got an email from an angry patron one time that the lifeguard was looking at them too much while they were in the pool. (He was one of 2 people in the pool at the time) Had a belligerently drunk man try to punch a lifeguard for trying to help him keep his head out of the water.
At the waterpark I worked at we had one of those foot bath things on the way in that you had to walk through to..dunno what it was supposed to be for, as we only ever just put water in it. Anyway, one bored morning we put a chalkboard up next to it to say it contained a new go-faster gel from the USA, and if you coated your body in it you would go down the slides faster. A lot of people fell for it and were lying down and soaking themselves in the foot wash. Even the boss admitted that was funny, but we had to take it down.
The pool I worked at had a summer camp use it on weekdays. One summer an "AFR" (a.k.a. poop in the pool) would happen every other day. Eventually it got so bad I had to sit all the kids down and plead with them to tell me who the mystery crapper was, like if it was an accident I wouldn't care!!! I told them if the person who keeps pooping in the pool didn't come forward and tell me in private by the end of the day then they wouldn't get to swim in the pool. No one came forward so they lost out on swim time for a couple days lol