"Ready? Dive." I took one last gulp of air and began swimming towards the bottom of the lake. It got darker and murkier with each kick. Once on the bottom of the lake: one, two, three full strokes and then I began kicking my way back to the surface. Once there, those of us in the water lined up with the person on the dock. "Ready? Dive." I kicked my way back to the bottom of the lake. I'd done this dozens of times this summer, but this time was different. This time, with each stroke, I was praying I wouldn't find a body.
I was fifteen when my mom dragged me to the town swimming pool to get me a job. I found the manager terrifying. But I got the job. I don't even remember having to prove I could swim. I ended up spending the next three summers doing what I discovered was the best summer job in town. I got to sit outside all day getting a tan. And making sure no one drowned. Most days, the toughest part of my job was talking a kid into retrieving my whistle when I inevitably lost control of swinging it around my fingers and sent it flying over the fence or in the pool.
As easy as my job was, by the time August rolled around, I was ready to be done working and go back to school. I found myself longing for the days when I could wear underwear instead of a swimsuit. By mid-August, I begin fervently wishing for a lightening storm so we could close the pool down for the afternoon. None the less, a summer in a wet swimsuit beat working the deli at the grocery store or doing trail repair for the forest service.
It wasn't until I was trying to decide what to do the summer after high school graduation that I realized just how great a gig lifeguarding was. Not only was it something that came easy to me, and wasn't difficult, it turns out it was something you could do anywhere. I ended up with a job lifeguarding on a lake for a summer camp in upstate New York in the summer of 1999.
This was the first time I'd lifeguarded on anything other that a swimming pool. My first day, we had to swim the length of the lake. It was man made and luckily it wasn't huge. Also lucky for me, I had stuffed a swim suit into my carry on bag when I flew out to NY. The airline lost my luggage and the only change of clothes I had was my swimsuit. For three days. The major difference between a lake and a pool is obviously the visibility. There are also no lane lines to follow and I can see the fish and seaweed that I'm trying to pretend isn't in the lake.
The other major difference about working at the camp in New York were the kids I was lifeguarding for. In the pool where I grew up, most of the kids could swim. It was eye opening to be around inner city kids that had rarely been in water outside of the bathtub. I found myself jumping in that lake after more kids on my first day than I ever had in three summers at the pool. These kids really could not swim. And didn't realize that they could not swim. I quickly learned to only wear clothes to the lake that could get wet because chances were that I was jumping in unexpectedly.
Because there were so many kids down at the lake at one time, we had buddy calls every few minutes and would count the pairs of kids in the water. More often than not, the count matched what it was supposed to be and everyone went on swimming. Occasionally the number was off and we found ourselves racing for the water to find a missing kid. The majority of the time of the time this happened, we barely got in the water before the kids were found sitting on the beach.
Unfortunately the majority of the time wasn't every time and I found myself swimming along the bottom of the lake praying that I wouldn't find a body. Because by this point we'd been diving for so long that it was more likely a recovery mission. In between prayers, I was reviewing CPR in my head. We were almost to the point where we left the swimming area and started swimming the lake, continuing to looks for the kids' bodies when we got word that they'd been found. They had neglected to check out of the swimming area and were found in their cabin. Which when you're thinking you're going to find a body, was the best possible outcome.
It wasn't until I dragged myself out of the lake, emotionally exhausted, that I noticed half the camp sitting quietly on the hillside, watching us. The kids were obviously in trouble and had to make a very public apology to the ten of us that had been diving for them for the last twenty minutes. It wasn't until then that I realized how important this job was. It was more than getting a great tan. I was actually responsible for lives. To this day, those are still the most terrifying twenty minutes of my life.
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