On The Water: Training rookies like your life depends on it

By G. PATRICK PAWLING

It is the absolute best job in the world. Unless something goes wrong.

Look there, on the lifeguard stand. See that "kid?" That's a rookie guard, some of whom have all of 16 years on this Earth. There in the water on a busy weekend in front of this rookie - who will be sitting with a veteran - are maybe 300 people. Behind, back on the beach, maybe 3,000.

This rookie might have to jump off the stand and run in with a lifesaving can to pull somebody out of a rip current. Or maybe somebody will get drilled body surfing, suffering a neck injury, in which case the rookie will help put the victim on a back board for safe transportation to the hospital, hopefully without spinal injury. There will be missing children and panicked parents, asthma attacks, Frisbee attacks, thunderstorms, flying projectile umbrellas, arguments on the beach and maybe occasions when the guards - and maybe even some patrons, as they're called - will be called upon to form a human chain, swishing their feet back and forth in the water, looking for a body under the waves. And the questions: When's high tide? Where's the best seafood? Where can I stay? Do they HAVE to hire girls now?

All this for $8.15 an hour. That's what rookies make in Ocean City, and that's why On The Water stopped in on rookie camp there this year. This is what we learned:

They take rookie camp seriously. In fact this year Ocean City stepped it up a couple notches. It's five days of running, learning and doing, with more emphasis than ever on hatching guards ready from the moment they hit the stand. It's not boot camp, but it's busy and demanding.

Lifeguarding isn't just about getting phone numbers and tans, it's about being ready to do CPR with a life hanging in the balance - it's about that and a couple dozen other things most of us don't think about when we're on the beach, like trying to figure out how to tell older people how to act and what to do even if they don't want to be told, because you're the law, Mr. And Ms. Rookie.

You better be in shape.

You better be good at stopping trouble before it starts. Scan. Look for people who are likely to need help. Get good at anticipating.

The trouble starts before these people get near a lifeguard stand. To get in they have to pass a test, and it's not automatic. There are two days of running in sand, dashing through the surf and rowing heavy lifeboats. More than 40 applied. Twenty were taken, with four alternates.

"I thought it was tough," said Rachel Vidovich, 18, one of the rookies who made it. "It's pretty hard to get in. If you make it, it's an honor."

"The tryouts, for somebody who doesn't have a swim background, could be challenging," said Vince Accardi, 17, of Mays Landing. "It's kind of tough."

Ocean City lifeguard Bob Ogoreuc, a swim coach and professor at Slippery Rock (Pa.) University who handles training for Ocean City now, says he'd confidently stack up the training in Ocean City against any town's. He's in a position to know. He has worked with beach patrols in Los Angeles County, San Diego and Florida on lifeguard training, and he is on the United States Lifeguard Association's textbook committee.

He said that in some ways - defibrillators, for example - Ocean City was ahead of the curve. And now it seems to be staying there with the use, this year, of special SCUBA gear that will allow a guard to quickly perform underwater searches. Only two other towns in the country are using the gear, Ogoreuc said, and other beach patrols are now looking to Ocean City for guidance.

"I think it's going to be something that's going to be really effective," he said. "That is something that really put us out on the cutting edge."

Rookie training is a mix of the practical - like swinging out of the lifeguard stand without twisting your ankle and how approach a scared and sinking swimmer and the fastest way to run through the surf - and the medical, like learning CPR and how to work with medics who arrive from the fire department. You haven't lived until you've rowed a heavy lifeboat out through head-high shorebreak, and then tried to get it back in without flipping. And nothing gets the attention of a rookie lifeguard faster than video of a person drowning. It kind of puts a new face on the summer.

"This shows them that it's the real deal," said Ogoreuc. "They've got 100 people in their water and they are responsible for 100 lives. I tell them I like to think of these people as my extended family. It makes me a lot more on my toes. It doesn't even matter if they know I'm there. What matters is at the end of the day they go home safe and I go home safe."

Next time you're on the beach, look at the lifeguard. Where is she or he looking? Even if an attractive member of the opposite sex happens to be in view, odds are that lifeguard is facing the water. They talk about this type of distraction in rookie camp, and the upshot is that there is nothing wrong with having fun when you're off duty. So do your job when you're on, and the rest will take care of itself.

Because they're pared with veterans, the rookies' training never stops. If the veterans in Ocean City are like veterans in other jobs, they probably help the rookies a lot and keep them humble, too. Veterans are good at that. Chris Denn remembers his first year well. He was 15 years old and 150 pounds.

"It taught me a lot," Denn said. "It's a way of life."

Denn, and many lifeguards, have what cops call command presence - the ability to respectfully but quickly convince everybody else that they are in charge and that they know what they're doing. This is an acquired skill, and for a teenager it's not automatic. But it is necessary. The idea, said veteran Drew Muzslay, is to act with authority - give hand signals crisply, talk the same way and even blow the whistle in an authoritative way.

There are times, he said, when a guard has to get a message across: "Wait a second, don't let the tan confuse you." And if it's done well, the patron soon begins to think, "Hey, maybe this 16-year-old does have it together."

It appears that this class does. Among them is Sarah Polhanus, 20, a student at Washington College.

"I tried an indoor job (waitressing) and it just wasn't my cup of tea," she said. "This is the place to be."

"It's the best job down here," said Tom O'Keefe, who rows for Temple University.

Right, and one of the most serious.