The folks I worked with at Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center had an incredible array of skills and certifications. Two completed wilderness emergency medicine and rescue class with me just before hiring on. One had guided cross country bicycling trips. Another taught kids to hand build and paddle kayaks in the Pacific Ocean. Several were white water rafting guides. We took advantage of each other’s skills as much as possible to pad our resumes. Sally was a lifeguarding instructor, so just about everyone took the opportunity to pick up a lifeguard certification.

It was probably late April when we started training, and the first big pool session we had was indoors, and it was fine. I’ve always been a reasonably confident swimmer, except for my fear of sharks in the deep end of my pool. The only difficult thing about the first session was treading water for two minutes using just your legs. It shouldn’t be super hard, but I got the second worst calf cramp of my life during the test. I finished that two minutes with just my lips above water.

We’d had to borrow a pool from a nearby school for that session, and nearby is a relative term. The long distance swim part of the lifeguard test requires a 300 yard open swim. We did that at the outdoor learning center itself. Genesee Valley didn’t have a pool, but it had no shortage of ponds. The average water temperature in May in Maryland is 56°. At that temperature it takes about an hour to get hypothermia depending on how active you are. Let me tell you when you’re in 56° water you stay pretty fucking active. I have camped on snowy mountains, spent the night in my hand built igloo, and seen spilled water freeze before it hit the ground. None of that made me as cold as swimming across that pond. My sole mission that day was to jump off the dock, catch my breath, convince my testicles to descend, swim to the other end of the pond, turn around and swim back to the dock like I was being chased by Jaws.

As people finished that swim, we didn’t even bother toweling off. In finishing order we just ran up the hill to the cabin and piled into the single shower. It took so long to warm up that we packed our chattering teeth and shivering flesh into that thing like people trying to set a Guinness record for numbers in a phone booth. There is a picture somewhere of close to a dozen people in one shower sharing the hot water and whatever body heat we had left. I think most of us are smiling in that picture. 

Later that summer, we finished a day with a bunch of teenage boys by letting them take the zip line down the hill and into the pond. One kid released significantly farther out then was ideal and from the shore we watched as his combat boots and camo pants started to suck him down. It took longer than I’d like to acknowledge to realize that he was drowning. I had to swim out 50 yards to rescue him, and he was in full on flail panic when I got to him. I really wish I had brought a life jacket. But I was able to roll him over onto his back and frog-kick us toward shore to my partner, who had taken the critical extra three seconds to bring a floatation device. 

That is, by the way, the only life I know I can take credit for saving  in my career.