Lifeguard Amy Curnow gives us an insight into working as a pool lifeguard.

Being a lifeguard is an extremely rewarding job. The skills you learn can be used throughout your whole life.

You are required to have your first aid certificate, which gives knowledge that can save lives.

As a lifeguard you are there to watch the whole aquatic area and be actively supervising everyone in and out of the water. Supervisors, parents, and people who are watching are just as important as the people in the pool.

The Watch Around Water policy is something all lifeguards strongly monitor.

Children under the age of 5 must be in within arm's reach of an adult.

While children aged 5 to 10 must always be actively supervised. This means reading a book, looking at your phone, or having your back to your child is not acceptable and you will be spoken to by the lifeguard.

A full pool and busy aquatic area is a lot of area to watch so we use different scanning strategies to help us keep track of everyone.

These include:

• Position: it is important to position yourself so you can see majority of the pool and patrons.
• Posture: maintaining a positive and alert posture not only looks professional to patrons but keeps your mind alert and body active.
• Pattern: by strategising your scanning into different patterns you can keep your mind alert and maintain a focused scan.
• Patrons: scanning patrons and taking a mental note of the types of patrons you are supervising can keep your mind active and prepare you for the types of emergencies that may occur.

Every three months lifeguards are required to update their training and review all first aid scenarios such as allergic reactions, heart attack, stroke, spinal injuries and more.

We all practise each skill multiple times, in real life conditions. To practise spinal injuries we have one of act as a patient and the rest of us perform the rescue.

This ensures we are getting the most out of our training.

This is a great way to come together with the other lifeguards and practise our skills to ensure we are ready to act fast when incidents happen. As a pool lifeguard you are required to complete a swim of 200 m in under six minutes. This is to make sure you are fit and ready the job.

We are currently recruiting for lifeguard positions. Find out more on our Careers page.

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