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Do you sometimes smile at tanned hunks in sunglasses patrolling the beaches? There is no denying it, they can see it, but they would like you to listen to the warnings with the same attention you pay to their muscles. Because WOPR rescuers spend most of their time at work on prevention. They admonish, explain, ask for caution, or bring back people who have gone too far. They must also be able to anticipate the effects of our actions in order to react appropriately earlier. Because a good lifeguard is a dry lifeguard, i.e. one for whom pulling a drowned man is a last resort.
- How to become a lifeguard and what does his job look like? Tomek Józefiak talks about how the beach in Kołobrzeg is patrolled
- In this work, not a day goes by without something happening, and the rescuer must act quickly. Due to the fact that rescuers are trained, they know very well what to do in every situation, they work almost mechanically
- Tomek talks about the main sins of sunbathers – including drinking and drinking, not following the ban on entering the water and using unguarded bathing areas
- On June 29, we celebrate the WOPR Lifeguard Day
- You can find more such stories on the Onet homepage.
Drowning in Poland
Last year, according to the data contained in the KSIP Analytical System, 483 cases of drowning were reported in Poland, 460 people (including 48 women) drowned. Victims over 50 years of age prevailed (223), in the 31-50 age group there were 143 victims. The lowest drownings occurred among children under 7 – 5 cases. Most people drowned in rivers (118) and lakes (111), and the least in the sea (25).
The most common causes of drowning are:
- bathing in an unguarded but not forbidden place – 64,
- carelessness over water – 38
- carelessness when catching fish – 34,
- bathing in a forbidden place – 25.
117 victims consumed alcohol before entering the water.
In terms of the number of drownings (according to NIK studies), Poland is the leader in comparison to other European Union countries, proportionally twice as many people die here.
The topic of drowning returns every year, the media sound the alarm every season, and the following summer it turns out that nothing has changed. Even so, lifeguards believe that without constantly being reminded of the water safety rules, accident statistics would jump dramatically.
- See also: How to swim so as not to drown?
How to become a WOPR lifeguard?
You can join the ranks of the Voluntary Water Rescue Service after the age of 12 (junior WOPR lifeguard). Then the duty hours are supervised by an adult. An adult becomes a lifeguard after completing the course and passing the exams. The course consists of a theoretical and a practical part. The first covers general knowledge in the field of rescue, while the second covers fitness tasks in water. The rescuer must swim 50 m with the rescue crawl in less than 55 seconds and 400 m in less than 8 minutes, and you also need to master 200 m towing. The raised head allows you to control the situation around you and maintain contact with the injured person.
The lifeguard course lasts at least 66 hours, is conducted on a weekend or intensive daily basis for 2 weeks. In addition, you must complete a qualified first aid course, which gives you knowledge of what to do when someone is not breathing or when someone is stung by a bee and is allergic. It is about pre-medical help provided by the paramedic before the ambulance arrives.
But that’s not all. You also need to have qualifications useful in rescue, e.g. a scuba diving course, motorboat helmsman, swimming instructor, etc.
- «You can drown in a tablespoon of water. It’s not a cliché ». How Poles are sinking?
The story of Tomek and his brothers
– Rescue is a passion that positively drives you throughout the year – says Tomek Józefiak, a 22-year-old student of applied mathematics at the Lodz University of Technology, the fourth season of responsible work as a lifeguard on the Kołobrzeg beach.
For Tomek, rescue is actually a family passion, because his two older brothers Paweł (32) and Piotr (25) also work in WOPR. The bug of water sports was instilled in them by their father, who also worked as a lifeguard at one time.
Tomek learned to swim as a six-year-old, he trained competitive swimming until the XNUMXst grade of junior high school, and is currently active in the academic section.
In water rescue, the eldest brother paved the way, and Tomek wanted to imitate him. He liked Paweł’s summer trips to the seaside, where he used his swimming skills in a useful way. Paweł completed eight seasons in WOPR, and Piotr won his qualifications last year. They all worked in one rescue team, on the same beach in Kołobrzeg. The whole tower belonged to Józefiak for two weeks.
When asked why they chose the Baltic Sea, Tomek replies: – You can learn a lot at the seaside, there is always the most action there. In addition to the phenomena occurring in other water bodies, there are waves, reverse currents, strong winds, and besides, most people come there. There are even several thousand people per one rescuer in the season.
The oldest rescuer Tomek met was 60 years old, so he hopes that he still has a lot of challenges ahead. You can work as long as you are healthy and fit. His dream is to turn Kołobrzeg into a surfers’ beach in Australia.
What does the lifeguard’s everyday life look like?
There are three to six rescuers working in the tower. One usually observes from the tower, letting the rest of the team know what is happening. One is always in the boat, looking over the shore from the sea. It is a lifeguard who closes the area of the team’s work. The rest are patrolling the beach. This is the procedure, this is what lifeguards are required to observe from the end line and the starting beach.
– I have heard about drones that are to help us at work and the so-called intelligent monitoring, which catches people drowning – says Tomek Józefiak. “ Equipment may change, but in the end, a human remains and he has to do his job as best he can.
The basic equipment of the rescuer is floating equipment – a buoy or an eel, i.e. a rescue belt, and a safety rope that allows him to be pulled ashore when he reaches the drowning person.
– In the event of an action, you have to quickly find yourself, switch to action, often take a risk – says Tomek. – Rescuers must quickly decide whether they are on their own, give a radio message, or take someone to help, leaving several hundred bathers unattended.
There is a so-called an elder of the tower, tasked with making such decisions. On the other hand, the most decisive person is the superior of all the elders of the tower, the so-called senior beach.
However, when someone is drowning, time is of the essence. The tasks are carefully divided and everyone knows what belongs to it. The elder of the tower whistles, pulls down the mast and broadcasts a radio message about the situation. The lifeguards from the beach run to the action, and the one from the boat either joins them or controls the course of the action. There is a silence at the whistle from the beach tower. Everyone is looking at the running rescuer. After practically every action, people get up and applaud. Then they are more careful for about … 20 minutes.
— I am passionate about physical exercise, so on my beach we run mock actions, we train to go over all possible scenarios – says Tomek.
The work of a rescuer is dynamic, so everything cannot be fully predicted. The timing of the action also depends on the specific situation. It can close in 20 seconds or in an hour, because, for example, a mother reports that her little daughter has just bathed and has now disappeared. Then you have to get people off the beach and create a chain of life. The rescuers brush the bottom in search of the baby, and it usually turns out that without telling her mother, she went for a lonely walk.
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Adventurous rescue
There is not a day in this job if something does not happen. Tomek Józefiak tells about some of his experiences:
– The wind was very strong, the waves were high, and a red flag was fluttering on the mast. A man came up to us asking about the ban on bathing. We explained that it was dangerous, that strong currents, waves … He said that in that case he would go to an unguarded beach. Less than 15 minutes have passed and sunbathers come running. They shout that a man is drowning several dozen meters away. He can’t go back to shore, he struggles with the waves. We ran to the indicated place, pulled him out of the water and … It turned out that he was the same guy who didn’t believe in danger a quarter of an hour ago. I couldn’t help but say, I didn’t.
People are constantly afraid to help and it is not just about drowning people. And yet, if someone has not completed first aid courses and commits a medical error, there is no penalty. Instead, he should expect it if he does not provide help when necessary. By help we also mean calling 112, to the emergency room, or even staying with the victim and calling for help.
“We had just finished work and were getting off the beach when someone called the man passed out. I ran to him and immediately started CPR, or CPR for short, by compressing the chest. My colleagues called an ambulance and brought me a medical bag with, among others, defibrillator and oxygen cylinder. There were a lot of people around, but no one knew what to do, they didn’t even try to revive him.
People who are pulled out of the water by rescuers thank you for saving their lives, unless they happen to be under the influence …
– A man got into the water, as it turned out later, drunk, and began to drown. I swam up to him, and he starts jerking with me, screaming, blaspheming me. He was very aggressive. To help such a person you have to use force, even to hurt him. In this case, it did not end with just twisting the arm. In order to successfully bring him to order, I also had to “straighten” his nose. This is what happens in extreme situations. When a person is drowning, the person who comes to the aid may be pulled under the water. Very often people are drowning in pairs.
The less weight someone weighs, the easier it is to pull them out, and the heavier someone is, the more harm they can do to the rescuer. A drowning person usually does not know that he is pulling the rescuer down, scratching, tugging his head, pulling his hair out, flooding himself when he wants to breathe in air. That is why the rescuer often comes out of the action more mutilated than the one who was drowning.
— A similar situation happened to my friend. The guy is 175 cm tall and weighs 80 kg, and he was rescuing a seven-year-old boy. Already on the beach, after the action, he felt a strong pain in his hand. A little skinny kid fought for his life with such force that he broke the lifeguard’s arm. My friend didn’t even notice it when he saved him.
Each personal thanks is remembered for life.
– My watchful eye once caught a little girl who stepped into a fault and began to drown. She tilted her head down, fought the water. I ran in no time, took her out and led her to her parents. Neither the mother nor the father had even noticed that something was wrong. They were deeply shocked. At the end of the day, a girl came to me with flowers to say thank you. I remember that she gave me three red roses and a candy bar on top of that.
The nicer the weather, the more likely you are to drown. However, lifeguards dislike dead waves the most. They appear the day after the storm, when it is calm and sunny. From the shore conditions look perfect, but the high waves from the day before have not faded away yet. In salvage slang, it’s dead man’s weather.
– We know then that something will happen – says Tomek. – I come to work and tell my colleagues: listen, something will happen today. And we are watching. If you have experience, look up, look at the conditions, then when you start work at 10 am, you can predict some things.
- Can you deal with emergencies? Take the quiz before your vacation!
The set of sunbathers’ sins has not changed for years
The worst disadvantage of sunbathers is the lack of proper supervision of young children. Instead of observing their children from close range, parents often do not move from the towel. Another sin is bravado, overestimating your own abilities, underestimating the element of water.
The sea is not a good place to test our skills. It’s a good place just to test the lifeguard’s skills. It is foolish to ask myself challenges such as: can I swim there or: swim as far from the shore as possible. These challenges must be met by rescuers later. And it is enough to consider for a moment whether I am much better than those 400 people who drowned last year, or whether I can also end this way. It would be useful to approach the water with greater respect, obey the instructions of the lifeguards and, of course, be careful about alcohol.
The motto of WOPR rescuers is: Let the other one be able to live. In order to implement them, they must, apart from their physical condition, also take care of their psyche.
– We cannot panic – says Tomek Józefiak. – We have to program ourselves to switch instantly from the mode: it’s fun, sitting by the sea, sunbathing, to the mode of fighting for human life. We have awareness, experience and skills, and this makes us different from the average sunbather.
If someone loses the fight against the element, they step in and have the duty to finish the fight by winning human life. This is seriously, for real, 100 percent.
It happens that the action fails. You fail to save someone who fainted on the beach or searches for nothing, and after a while the body flows out.
– Although I did not make a mistake, the action may end tragically. It is part of this profession – claims Tomek. – In my case, the effectiveness oscillates around 99 percent. I am a perfectionist, every rescuer should be. You cannot save your life half-heartedly, there is no leniency here, because the element does not give up.
Beach-goers do not even guess who is watching over them
– Rescuers are mostly positively crazy young people who want to gain as many interesting experiences as possible and have fun at the same time – says Tomek. – We come to Kołobrzeg from different parts of Poland and we are like a family. We are connected not only by work, we stay in touch throughout the year, we are friends and they are friendships for life.
Lifeguards confirm that saving women is the most pleasant way, so it’s no wonder that they have crowds of female admirers. Especially when they are patrolling the beaches without shirts, the girls lie down on their own, asking for help. Very often people want to take a picture with them on the beach or in a boat.
– They pamper us a bit, but when it comes down to it, we fight the element – says Tom.
Some may remember him from the program «Ninja Warrior Polska» broadcast on Polsat TV since September last year. The participants’ task was to overcome the obstacle course as quickly as possible so as not to fall into the water on the way. Tomek Józefiak took part in it together with his brothers. The oldest of them, Piotr, was the first to be eliminated, Paweł reached the semi-finals, and Tomek – to the finals (he was the second youngest finalist). He competed against 24 participants, only four of whom made it to the track. Tomek fell off on moving crutches. He claims that he has run out of concentration.
– I am fit, still beautiful and young, so I still have some time to conquer the world – he laughs.
This may interest you:
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