Robert Potter remembers going through Laguna Beach Lifeguard training and being chosen first out of three hundred and fifty applicants. Recorded at Laguna Beach Library, Laguna Beach, California.
Transcript
There’s one training thing, I wrote in one of the articles, that was really kind of cool.
I didn’t know it was happening, and this is, I actually become the first lifeguard, I got number one out of three hundred and fifty people that year. And how I did it was just figuring out a couple things. Right at the beginning they tell you, I can’t tell you, but, they’re gonna throw you off.
And they were doing it in the weight room. At Laguna Beach High School, was the written test, and it’s a bear. I mean, they’re going into dive tables, and compression tables, and is it heat stroke, or heat exhaustion, and what are you doing, and, for what activity you're taking care of. Mostly it’s quick triage, and a little ambulance and the supervisor’s would be there for anything serious.
I remember, one of my guys I really respected, came in, he was right before me, and he kind of had a look like, oh my God, he probably feels like he blew it. So, I got there, you get up, and this really worked for me, because I was living right where they said, they said, you’re gone off the beach, you’re walking home with your tube. And, so, they gave me the tube. You’re just gonna walk up this way. And I, as I, as you get to the pool, back in those days the pool was at a different location now, there was a fence around it with some walls you could climb into.
And a guy pops out, “Help, help, we need help in here!” Like this. And I was told, from the years previous, it was kind of one of the things they have a guy bothering you, and distracting you. So, the first thing I did was I jumped over the fence, I jumped down and I grabbed that guy, I said, “listen, I want you to go get help right now.” I pushed him, he says, “I can’t climb up,” he could have climbed up, but I pushed him up, and said, “you go to the nearest house, you knock on doors, you make phone calls, until you get a hold of someone, you get an ambulance.” There were no cell phones back then, so.
So, then I walked, around, and the other guy was there, “look, look, look there’s someone in there, there’s someone in the shallow end, and I have a broken arm.” And then they threw a little, like a resuscitation doll in the pool. So, you don’t touch the guy who can touch the bottom with a broken arm, you go straight, so it’s just prioritizing. Then I brought that person in, and he said, “oh,” and all of the sudden he says, then he started wandering out, and I was going “don’t go back out there, stay close in.” But he went out, so now I had to, I threw him my tube, grab with the other arm.
They kept doing this stuff. And then, the other guy was trying to bother me, “can I help, can I help?” I said, “go get that pole, can you.” You can’t take off the CPR, you can’t stop and start thinking, so I just stayed on it. And then they threw another one in the water. So, you had to go grab that, and pull that out. And, you had to do the, there’s a specific count that they had to do, so I went back and forth. And the other guy just kept. Trying to distract me, and I was looking at him like, come on you guys.
So, I just said, “I want you to get over that fence, and I want you to continue. I want you to make sure and go call some one and direct the ambulance in. I want you to make another attempt to get them to the pool at the high school.” And they finished. And, I think that’s what nailed it for me.
Well, I got one more lifeguard article, about how I got number one. Kind of the, it really was, my, from the get go, I put the guy on the fence. I said, “how’d I get number one? I mean, I would usually get in the top eight or ten on the written. I have a good memory, but. And I was probably overall third fourth in all the athletics, and how’d I get number one?” And they go, “well that counted for thirty percent of your overall score.” And, because I’m the only person who sent someone to go get help. And, I did it the first thing. I put him up so that was the first thing that, I think. They said, “you just, you nailed the practical. You weren’t distracted. And when the last guy, you sent him to do the double check, we felt that was really good, so.”
I didn’t tell anyone until afterwards, that’s how I did it, because I didn’t want. But you just had to be prepared. It was really, it’s very nerve wracking though. You’re sitting there and just waiting and they’re gonna call up, and you see the guy come in, like an ashen sheet, “I just killed three people, I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”
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