Hi Fi Scenario Training

Red Zone Training

If I see another experienced lifeguard doing ‘cpr’ on a manikin while melodically calling ‘one- one thousand, two- one thousand, three- one thousand’… I might be the one they have to roll over and wipe away the vomit.

This is great for teaching new lifeguards correct technique and timing, but this doesn’t prepare them for the real thing. The real thing is horrible, yucky, violent, confronting… and a lottery.

I also think experienced lifeguards are bored to death of being taught DRSABCD in a theoretical manner.

Last year I developed what I’m calling Red Zone Training and demand has grown quickly.

It’s training that recreates as many aspects of an actual emergency response as practical. It’s all about getting lifeguards to become familiar with what it’s like to work in the Red Zone (flight, fight, freeze mode). It’s not a nice place to work and can be a bit counterproductive. After all, we really don’t want lifeguards to run, fight or freeze during a response.

Working in the Red Zone is about working within a body that is undergoing some pretty big changes. You’ll have an elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure, you’ll be breathing faster. You might experience a pressing down feeling on your chest. You might get tunnel vision of tunnel hearing.

These are all well documented responses. If Red Bull could put adrenaline in a can, they would.

If you’re a lifeguard you have the added dimension of being wet or working in an area that is slippery and wet.

Like I said, it is not a nice place to work. Having said that I’m yet to meet a lifeguard, who despite some serious concerns before the training, doesn’t leave the scenario puffing and blowing saying ‘we should do that more often’. They love it, they crave it, it builds confidence. It’s what drew them to the role in the first place.

The initial part of the training is just spent talking about the given frameworks of emergency response and then about the site-specific aspects of their organisation’s procedures. This builds anticipation, big time. Most lifeguards know they don’t know their stuff well enough and so they put themselves under a great deal of pressure.

There’s no need to bark orders at them. They create the pressure. I also let them know that it’s ok to make mistakes, in fact I want them to make mistakes; ‘if we have a golden run out there today ladies, we’re gunna learn nothing’.

There will be mistakes, as there will be during the real thing. What I really want to see is lifeguards recovering from mistakes. That’s the trick; if you make a mistake, just have another go, and keep going until you get it right. You don’t have the option of saying; I’ve had enough now.

It’s become my new favourite training. It’s so satisfying watching a small group of lifeguards become a team. Five minutes in the thick of it, and they come off the boil a bit; the communication clicks, the muscle memory clicks, the good decision making starts. I love it. I want to hug them!

Lifeguards need to know how to deal with foam and vomit. They need to be confident that the cheap arse pair of trauma sheers in their AED will actually cut a wet shirt effectively. They need to know that BVMs are great but if you can’t get effective inflation of the chest, then you might have to go back to mouth to mask as part of your fault-finding process. Where are those pesky Bodok seals?

If you want confident, competent, well prepared lifeguards, life-like training is essential.