Pennsylvania Lifeguards and EMTs Train Together

LANCASTER – Lifeguards and emergency workers conducted a drill at the Ephrata Community Pool on Sunday morning.

In the mock scenario, a patient climbing the rock wall in the pool struck his head, then went into cardiac arrest and lost his pulse, according to lifeguard Victoria Surkin.

Lifeguards “stabilized” the patient, performed CPR and turned the patient over to EMTs in the drill, she said.

Surkin, who’s an EMT and a firefighter in Coatesville, has been a lifeguard for 10 years, three of them at Ephrata.

They try to drill once a season, she said.

“Knock on wood, we have not had a cardiac arrest. We have not had a trauma,” she said.

“One of my favorite (sayings) is ‘If it’s predictable, it’s preventable,'” she said. So lifeguards are vigilant to prevent people from diving in the shallow end and the like, she said.

Cindy Drob, the pool’s aquatics director, helped organize the 75-minute drill, which involved about 40 people from the Ephrata and Denver pools.