Lifeguard

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the impact of a broadened theoretical and empirical model of community engagement aimed at coastal drowning prevention via relationship building between lifeguards and beachgoers through the delivery of skill development sessions on the beach. SETTING: A lifeguard-patrolled beach in Lorne, Victoria, Australia, during the 2023 peak summer holiday season. METHODS: In total, 12 skill development sessions were delivered by teams of lifeguards and risk researchers to beachgoers...

The application of the Haddon matrix in identifying drowning prevention solutions in the north of Iran is necessary. We dealt with drownings on three levels of prevention including before, during, and after the injury in northern Iran (Guilan province). This study aimed to investigate the use of Haddon's matrix in preventing three-level drowning cases before, during, and after the accident in the north of Iran. This qualitative study consisted of 9 focus groups with a sample size of 78 people including 48 nursing staff, 21 emergency medicine specialists, and 30 people from non-medical personnel (local community leaders, executive officials of relevant organizations, lifeguards, staff working in health centers, and families of victims)...

INTRODUCTION: Drowning is a global problem. This so-called "silent killer" claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year around the world. Despite this, beaches are a fundamental space in the lives of many people throughout the world. The scant knowledge regarding aspects of safety, accident prevention and the identification of risks in these natural aquatic environments, all contribute to the number of aquatic accidents that happen. The objective of this study was to establish the reality about the Spain population's knowledge of risks on the beaches...

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use disorder (AUD), associated with significant morbidity and mortality, continues to be a major public health problem. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the impact of AUD, with a 25% increase in alcohol-related mortality from 2019 to 2020. Thus, innovative treatments for AUD are urgently needed. While inpatient alcohol withdrawal management (detoxification) is often an entry point for recovery, most do not successfully link to ongoing treatment. Transitions between inpatient and outpatient treatment pose many challenges to successful treatment continuation...

OBJECTIVE: Research exists examining sunburn risks, sun protective behaviors, and interventions among pool lifeguards; however, ocean lifeguard research is limited. This study aimed to determine sunburn prevalence and associations between sunburn with photoprotective attitudes and habits among Florida ocean lifeguards. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was electronically administered in 2021 to ocean lifeguards using sun protection questions. Recruitment occurred through three lifeguard agencies...

INTRODUCTION: Amongst pool lifeguards, the capacity to identify drowning swimmers quickly and accurately depends on the interpretation of critical cues. However, assessing the capacity for cue utilization amongst lifeguards at present is costly, time-consuming, and largely subjective. The aim of this study was to test the relationship between cue utilization and the detection of drowning swimmers in a series of virtual public swimming pool scenarios. METHOD: Eighty-seven participants with or without lifeguarding experience engaged in three virtual scenarios, two of which were target scenarios where drowning events occurred within a 13 minute or 23 minute period of watch...

BACKGROUND: Surf lifesavers and lifeguards have provided essential education, preventative, and rescue services to the Australian community for over 110 years. In this first responder role, surf lifesavers and lifeguards are inadvertently exposed to high risk and trauma related experiences, which may negatively impact mental well-being. To date however, there has been limited research into the mental health of surf lifesavers and lifeguards, and no studies at all on the mental health of adolescent surf lifesavers...

The aim of this study was to analyze the rescues carried out by surfers from Portugal and Spain, their knowledge of rescue and resuscitation and their perception and risk behavior while surfing. An online survey was conducted in 2048 surfers from Portugal and Spain, with questions regarding the demographic characteristics, experience, perception and risk behavior of the surfers; rescues attended by the surfers and surfer's knowledge and experience in rescue and resuscitation. Concerning the number of rescues carried out by surfers, 78...

INTRODUCTION: Drowning is a public health problem. Interrupting the drowning process as soon as possible and starting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can improve survival rates. Inflatable rescue boats (IRBs) are widely used worldwide to rescue drowning victims. Performing CPR in special circumstances requires adjusting the position based on the environment and space available. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of over-the-head resuscitation performed by rescuers aboard an IRB in comparison to standard CPR...

This study aimed to identify the most important, frequently performed, and physically demanding tasks performed by Brazilian firefighters and to identify tasks that could be used to assess physical fitness. A subjective task analysis was conducted. Five hundred twenty-four firefighters (84% male; 16% females) responded to an online survey and rated 37 tasks across three domains (most important, most frequent, and most physically demanding). A dichotomous decision analysis was used to inform the proposed physical fitness tests...

BACKGROUND: The skin microbiome is important for skin health and protection against solar damage. Sun exposure can cause long-term harm and increase the risk of skin aging and skin cancer. Here we examined the effects of daily exposure to sun radiation on the skin microbiome in order to determine whether skin microbiome bacteria can contribute to protection from solar damage. METHODS: Skin swabs were collected from ten lifeguards before and after the summer season to analyze changes in the skin microbiome...

We present a hybrid machine learning and flow analysis feature detection method, RipViz, to extract rip currents from stationary videos. Rip currents are dangerous strong currents that can drag beachgoers out to sea. Most people are either unaware of them or do not know what they look like. In some instances, even trained personnel such as lifeguards have difficulty identifying them. RipViz produces a simple, easy to understand visualization of rip location overlaid on the source video. With RipViz, we first obtain an unsteady 2D vector field from the stationary video using optical flow...

Objective: To evaluate the thermal environment of different types of public places and the thermal comfort of employees, so as to provide scientific basis for the establishment of microclimate standards and health supervision requirements. Methods: From June 2019 to December 2021, 50 public places (178 times) of 8 categories in Wuxi were selected, including hotels, swimming pools (gymnasiums), bathing places, shopping malls (supermarkets), barber shops, beauty shops, waiting rooms (bus station) and gyms. In summer and winter, microclimate indicators such as temperature and wind speed were measured in all kinds of places, combined with the work attire and physical activity of employees in the places...

BACKGROUND: Lifeguards may face many life-threatening situations during their careers and may be at increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Minimal evidence concerning critical incident management systems in lifeguard organisations exists. OBJECTIVES: To develop, implement and evaluate an operational system for critical incident management in lifeguard organisations. METHODS: This retrospective study included data on occupational injury reports from 2013 to 2022 in TrygFonden Surf Lifesaving Denmark...

Smart glasses (SG) could be a breakthrough in emergency situations, so the aim of this work was to assess the potential benefits of teleassistance with smart glasses (SG) from a midwife to a lifeguard in a simulated, unplanned, out-of-hospital birth (OHB). Thirty-eight lifeguards were randomized into SG and control (CG) groups. All participants were required to act in a simulated imminent childbirth with a maternal-fetal simulator (PROMPT Flex, Laerdal, Norway). The CG acted autonomously, while the SG group was video-assisted by a midwife through SG (Vuzix Blade, New York, NY, USA)...

BACKGROUND: The exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation is a significant risk factor generally underestimated by outdoor workers and employers. Several studies have pointed out that occupational solar exposure increased eye and skin diseases with a considerable impact on the lives and productivity of affected workers.The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness against ultraviolet radiation of some measures recently undertaken for the protection of lifeguards in a coastal area of Tuscany...

BACKGROUND: Ensuring that pool lifeguards develop the skills necessary to detect drowning victims is challenging given that these situations are relatively rare, unpredictable and are difficult to simulate accurately and safely. Virtual reality potentially provides a safe and ecologically valid approach to training since it offers a near-to-real visual experience, together with the opportunity to practice task-related skills and receive feedback. As a prelude to the development of a training intervention, the aim of this research was to establish the construct validity of virtual reality drowning detection tasks...

Most drowning deaths on Australian beaches occur in locations not patrolled by lifeguards. At patrolled locations, where lifeguards supervise flagged areas in which beachgoers are encouraged to swim between, the incidence of drowning is reduced. To date, risk prevention practices on coasts focus on patrolled beaches, deploying warning signs at unpatrolled locations with the aim of raising public awareness of risk. What remains unexplored is the potential for learning and behaviour change that can transfer from patrolled to unpatrolled beaches through beachgoer's experiences and interactions with lifeguards...

When looking for a certain object or person, individuals often engage in collaborative visual search, i.e., they search together by coordinating their behavior. For instance, when parents are looking for their child on a busy playground, they might search collaboratively by dividing the search area. This type of labor division in collaborative visual search could be beneficial not only in daily life, but also in professional life (e.g., at airport security screening, lifeguarding, or diagnostic radiology). To better understand the mechanisms underlying this type of collaborative behavior, as well as its benefits and costs, researchers have studied visual search scenarios in the laboratory...

BACKGROUND: Drowning is one of the leading causes of death in the pediatric population. Patients arriving to the emergency department (ED) with submersion injuries are often asymptomatic and well-appearing, but can sometimes present critically ill and require prolonged resuscitation. The question of how long to continue resuscitation of a pediatric patient with a submersion injury is a difficult question to answer. CASE REPORT: We present a case of 6-year-old boy was found by his friends submerged in sea water for 10-15 min...