KEEPING THE SWIMMERS SAFE: Community Park Pool Head Lifeguards Sofie Fitzgerald and Liam Gray.

By Donald Gilpin

The Community Park Pool (CPP)— four pools actually — off Witherspoon Street in the heart of Princeton, with its expanse of greenery and blue water, with swimmers of all ages active in the pool or relaxing nearby, is an idyllic setting on a beautiful summer afternoon. 

But Sofie Fitzgerald and Liam Gray, two of the pool’s head lifeguards, are on the job — along with a large contingent of fellow lifeguards — keeping close watch to ensure that the thousands of CPP patrons from Memorial Day through Labor Day can enjoy the beautiful setting without fears for the safety of all.

The number of young children drowning in the U.S. has been rising. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that more children ages 1-4 die from drowning than any other cause of death, and every year in the U.S. there are an estimated 4,000 drowning deaths, an average of 11 per day. But Fitzgerald and Gray are determined to not let that happen at CPP.

“We try to prevent emergencies before they happen,” said Gray. “We make sure that everybody who goes into deep water has passed the swim test. We have complimentary life jackets at the front desk that we give to younger or weaker swimmers. We do everything in our power to stop an emergency before it even happens.”

In his fourth summer lifeguarding at CPP, Gray, 18, who has worked as a lifeguard at several other pools in the area, described CPP as “the best and most organized pool I’ve worked at. We have more guards on the job than any other pool and more managers on site. And we have a better emergency action plan (EAP). This is the best one and the safest, easily.”

Fitzgerald, who is in her sixth summer as a lifeguard at CPP and has also served as a lifeguard at Connecticut College where she is a rising junior, noted the effective organizational structure at CPP and the emphasis on training.  “In the lifeguard room the first aid equipment is very accessible,” she said. “Everybody knows where everything is. Also, we practice our emergency action plan a lot. We do a good job of practicing it, and everybody knows it. And we have in-services, which everybody has to attend.”

Fitzgerald, 20, grew up in Lawrenceville and graduated from the Wilberforce School. She has been a swimmer from an early age, when she watched her older sisters lifeguard at a pool near their home. She’s on the swim team at Connecticut College and is majoring in economics.

Gray [who is my nephew] will be a sophomore this fall at the University of Pittsburgh, where he is majoring in mechanical engineering. He grew up in Robbinsville and graduated from Robbinsville High School, where he was captain of the swim team.

On Tuesday last week Fitzgerald and Gray both completed their two-year recertification, which included swimming 300 meters, recovering a cinder block from 14 feet underwater at the bottom of the diving well, and reviewing a number of rescue techniques and extrications. They also had to retrain in CPR and complete detailed tests, on which they had to score at least 80 percent. They are both now officially certified until 2025.

During their break on a relatively peaceful Friday afternoon they talked in the community room overlooking the pools, describing a day in the life of a CPP lifeguard. Gray usually works on weekdays from 12 to 8 p.m., Fitzgerald from 12 to 4 p.m., as well as some mornings, and she conducts additional swimming lessons when needed.

As head lifeguards they need to make sure there are enough guards on duty, at least one for every 25 patrons. “First we check who’s working and we write the rotation accordingly,” said Gray. “We get a count of how many people are in the pool, and that determines how many guards we’ll need watching the pool.”

“We have a minimum of six guards,” Fitzgerald added, “but we might add more depending on how crowded the pools get.” She pointed out that the main pool, because it’s so large, always needs at least two lifeguards on duty. 

Gray continued, “Every time more than 25 people are in a given zone we add another guard to that area so that no guard is overworked and everybody can keep a close eye on who’s swimming in what areas.”

On a quiet day the lifeguards can rotate on and off duty every 30 minutes, but on busy days they might need to be on duty for as much as 90 minutes at a time. 

When they’re on duty the main job is surveillance. “We’re looking around, making sure everybody is OK, but we also enforce the rules,” said Gray. “We make sure nobody’s diving into shallow water, make sure nobody’s running on the pool deck. There’s horseplay a lot of times — particularly with younger kids. They like to hold each other under the water, and they don’t realize how dangerous that can be. We try to stop people from doing anything like that.”

The lifeguards also enforce the life jacket rule, which requires that any life jackets in use must be Coast Guard-approved, wrap-around jackets. Complimentary life jackets are available at the front desk for anyone who needs one.

“In addition,” Gray continued, “every two hours we test all the pools for chlorine and pH levels to make sure they’re high enough to kill germs, but not high enough to burn your eyes or bleach out your swimsuit.” 

Guards generally will test the pools during their breaks. “It’s a break, but you’re still on duty, just not actively watching the pool,” said Gray. “If somebody comes in and needs first aid, the guard on break would be in charge of that. Or if somebody comes in and asks for a swim test, the guards on break would administer that.”

“Also,” he continued, “if an EAP is activated the guards on break have jobs they are responsible for, like bringing the first aid equipment, the defibrillator, the backboards, just in case. You never know what you might need.” 

He explained that a log book in the guard room includes every pool reading from the entire summer just in case there’s ever an emergency where an inspector might need the information. “We have on file chlorine levels, temperature, pH, and how many people were in each zone at any given time,” he said.

After writing out the guards’ schedule for the day, the head guards have to get the pool ready for whatever group of swimmers is expected. Lap swimmers need the lane lines in place, while public swim calls for all the lane lines to be removed

Throughout the month of July and part of June summer camps organized through the Princeton Recreation Department come to the pool. “We have tons and tons of kids coming through the door,” Gray said. “It can get a little chaotic, so that was a time we added more lifeguards.”

The biggest event of the summer was Princeton’s Community Night Out 2023 on August 1, when admission was free, more than 1,000 people came through the gates, and there were more than 200 people in the main pool alone. “Even in situations like that we keep the ratio at 25 patrons to one lifeguard,” Gray noted.

On Mondays, Fitzgerald explained, the lifeguards run a swim test for anyone who’s interested, with performance on the test determining which pool each kid is  allowed to go into. If they can’t swim they are restricted to the family pool. Each child is given a rubber band of a certain color to indicate which pool they should be in. “We try to make sure everybody is in the area where they can swim safely,” said Gray.

Misbehaving kids can be a challenging aspect of the job.  “We have a couple of repeat customers who like to bend the rules a bit,” he said.  “You can tell when somebody’s up to no good because they always look around to see if a lifeguard is looking at them. They don’t realize that with the number of lifeguards we have, the odds are that at least one guard is looking at them at any given time, so it’s hard to get away with breaking the rules here.”

Fitzgerald added, “It’s usually little boys. We know a few of them. They’re pretty well known by the staff.” 

“They like wrestling and running around and flipping into the shallow end and diving in,” said Gray. Fitzgerald pointed out that kids also sometimes try to go off the diving board when they haven’t passed the swim test or go down the slide when they are not yet tall enough. The punishment is usually sitting at the edge of the pool for a few minutes, “until they’re remorseful,” Fitzgerald added.

When asked for advice they would give to parents and children who come to the CPP, Gray and Fitzgerald emphasized parental supervision of small children and understanding of the need for the swim tests. 

“Some people, parents and kids, get a little frustrated with our swim tests,” said Fitzgerald. “They say it’s too challenging, but it’s the test we’re required to do by our managers and the facility.” 

Gray emphasized, “It’s a safety hazard to have somebody who’s not a strong swimmer in water that’s 14 feet deep.”

He went on to urge parents to keep an eye on their younger children. “All the guards are trained well enough so that if there’s an emergency somebody will see it and we will act accordingly, but it stops your heart a bit when you see a little kid struggling in the pool with no parent around. It would make everybody’s job so much easier if there were more parent supervision.”

CPP Aquatics Director Mike Uchrin commented on the CPP lifeguards, a total staff of about 100. “They do a great job,” he said. “We could not be what we are to this community without the help of these seasonal employees, the teenagers and college kids who come out for us every summer. We’re really lucky to have a great group of kids working with us.”