Lifeguard shortage extends beyond Fostoria

If you want to be a lifeguard, the Geary Family YMCA in Fostoria would likely love to have you — as would any number of other places. "It's beaches, community pools, public pools, YMCAs — all of the above are having lifeguard shortages," said Geary Family YMCA Aquatics Coordinator Jennie Whitman, noting that 309,000 pools in the United States did not open in 2023 due to a shortage of lifeguards. "I've been at four different Y's and I can probably say with confidence that they all had, at least at some point," said Kristen Tiell, the Geary Family YMCA's president and chief executive officer. "When I came here (about 10 years ago), initially, I can't say if I paid attention much if they had a lifeguard shortage, but I know that it took a dive after 2020. I don't know if it was because of COVID(-19), but I think it was already starting to go down." Tiell said the local YMCA currently employs 12 lifeguards. Optimally, she said, the number would be 20. "We've exhausted every avenue in trying to get lifeguards," Tiell said. "It's just slim pickin's. I know that sometimes our membership gets upset because we can't pull the hours that they need. But, we can't make people become lifeguards. We're doing everything that we can to keep this pool open for them." As it stands, Whitman said, she arrives at the YMCA before 5 a.m., to have the large pool open at 5:30, and she serves as a lifeguard until noon. The large pool and the smaller, more shallow, pool, are closed from noon to 3 p.m. Lifeguards are then on duty until the pool closes at 7, often being on hand for practices or meets being hosted by the Fostoria High School team or the YMCA's Gators squad. Lifeguards are scheduled for shifts of about four hours while, generally, also spending time at other jobs or on schoolwork. "We've seen a lot of youth step up into the lifeguarding positions," Tiell said. "Where we struggle is to get lifeguards to come in early in the morning." To assist with the situation, Tiell said, some YMCA employees have become certified as lifeguards to take shifts when necessary. So, why the shortage? "It's (time-consuming), it's physical and it's costly," Tiell said, explaining that while examiners come to Fostoria to test prospects, lifeguard training is expensive and involves rigorous physical testing. "It's a costly training," she said. "It costs about $200 every time we train a lifeguard. For a long time, we were covering that cost 100%. We would pay for them and we would ask them to stay for at least a year. But there was no way to hold people accountable for that year. So, what we do now is, we ask the lifeguard when they're applying for the job to pay for (the training) and if they work for six consecutive months here, we reimburse that fully. And we host on-site, so we're not asking people to go to other places to be certified." Whitman pointed out that prospective lifeguards are training to acquire skills that they hope they will never have to use and that can involve a mental burden. "Just the name of the job — you're guarding people's lives," she said. "There's a lot of responsibility to it. It's a great, rewarding job. You get to meet so many good people and be involved in a lot of things, like outreach stuff that they do through the Y. "But, I mean, you are guarding someone's life. So, it is a responsibility and it's one of those where you're never really off duty because if you're walking down the street, you now have the ability, if someone collapses in front of you, to save that person's life. They are skills that are going to get you through life and you will have them forever." Tiell noted that lifeguarding can lead to a related career for young people. "I think that a lot of kids take this training and take it somewhere into the medical field, whether it be an EMT, whether it be into nursing," she said. "Ally (Keckler) was our head lifeguard for a year and now she's training to be a nurse. So, I think it's a really good jumpstart for youth members and it's really rewarding." Tiell said she's hoping for funding to eventually help establish a youth lifeguard camp at her facility. "Hopefully, we can offer this for free," she said. "We're just working on the funding right now; fingers crossed it comes through." In the meantime, any prospective lifeguards are welcome to inquire at the Geary Family YMCA, located at 154 W. Center St. "Everybody knows where lifeguard applications are in this building," Tiell said with a laugh.