LAFAYETTE, La. — According to the American Lifeguard Association, about a third of more than 309,000 public pools in the nation are affected by a lifeguard shortage. These shortages can cause many community pools to cut back on hours or hire more employees in a hurry before the influx of summer residents.
At Riverside Swim Club, manager Robert Guillory hired 8 more lifeguards to prevent these shortages from impacting the pool. He says this shortage could be due to how difficult and expensive it can be to become a professionally trained lifeguard.
"One of the reasons for the shortage is that they have a hefty fee to be a lifeguard and they have to go to a 24-hour course and they have to take tests and show proficiency in swimming, proficiency in saving people," said Guillory. "So it's not an easy thing to do, not everybody passes the course and it's a $200 dollar tuition fee."
At the City of Lafayette Aquatics swimming pool, Anna Hicks a lifeguard for over a year, tells KATC that being low on staff can also lead to a higher risk of pool injuries or even drownings.
"We definitely need a lot of lifeguards on duty to be able to cover the whole pool because this is a really big pool for one person to watch and when there are a lot of kids it's especially difficult," Hicks said.
"It's really important to always have lifeguards on duty especially when there is kids in the water," Sarah Landreneau, swim coach and lifeguard trainer at COLA. "It's so important to have that extra layer of protection to have that person watching over them making sure their safe making sure they follow the rules making sure if they get in trouble there's someone here to help them."
Hicks encourages anyone who has a passion of swimming and protecting people, to give life-guarding a try.
"Do it, it's so much fun. Especially if you want to go into the medical field, I want to go into the medical field in the future and I think lifeguard guards skills are very helpful," said Hicks.
