Lifeguard fired for saving drowning man

This is only a story because some math major sitting in a cube for an insurance company can't figure out how to quantify the exact liability for an entity that hires lifeguards and operates a beach. Now, if this beach has a strict size, then that math major sitting in his/her cube can come up with a number.

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Originally Posted by longtimeclone

Obviously everyone stops swimming and watches the lifeguard rescue the swimmer.

I think the other concern is that if he tries to save the swimmer and dies in the process, the company not really liable for his death because he was out of his area.

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If you stop swimming in 10' + water you are going to be in trouble. :spinny:

Seriously, someone who is already in deep water could start having difficulty while the lifeguard is running a quarter mile to rescue the other guy. Really if it wasn't for our litigious society this wouldn't be an issue. 50 years ago, if someone died while he was saving another life any lawsuit would be a decidedly uphill climb. Not so much today.

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Originally Posted by VeloClone

If you stop swimming in 10' + water you are going to be in trouble. :spinny:

Seriously, someone who is already in deep water could start having difficulty while the lifeguard is running a quarter mile to rescue the other guy. Really if it wasn't for our litigious society this wouldn't be an issue. 50 years ago, if someone died while he was saving another life any lawsuit would be a decidedly uphill climb. Not so much today.

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Well at least you will have more eyes watching the ones that stop swimming to watch the lifeguard. I would hope there would be individuals that would step up and try to save someone, but even then it is pretty dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. When people are drowing, they are usually in panic mode and will try to latch on to the person saving them.

Yeah I agree with your the second part. It seems there is a lot of policy or procedure that is only for CYA.

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Originally Posted by Bigman38

The person who should be fired is the one doing the firing. Common sense has to come in to play at some point.

I'm guessing that through this the lifeguard will make some money somehow.

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These kind of things never cease to amaze me in this day and age. Along with common sense you would think that the person who fired him would realize, hey, this is going to look really bad when it is all over Twitter, Facebook, message boards, etc. You'll have trouble doing something like this, and not having it bite you in the *** shortly thereafter.

Yeah, huge catch 22. If someone died in his beach while he was off saving this guy, the company would be sued to high heaven. Sad thing is they would probably win.