Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo / PhotoEuphoria
Four minutes. Under most circumstances, four minutes is unimportant and forgettable. The time it takes to gas up your car. To pay the monthly bills online. To order a sweater on Amazon. At other times it can feel longer—taking a phone call from an unhappy patron, entertaining a salesman during his pitch at your front door, waiting for an internet connection.
For a lifeguard, what happens in four minutes can have consequences that last forever. The worst-case scenario is a drowning, unseen and silent. After four minutes, a submerged child will have irreversible and permanent brain damage. The lifeguard who misses a rescue may also bear life-long scars of guilt.
On the other end of the spectrum, in four minutes a lifeguard can make a huge difference in the life of a visiting family. This happened at Westerville’s pool a couple years ago. One lifeguard—faced with the choice of going straight from one chair to another or engaging in an uncomfortable situation—chose the latter. She could have kept the blinders on, walked on by, and hoped the problem would go away on its own. She chose to do the right thing instead of just punching in and going through the motions. That choice made all the difference. Apparently, in that instance, all it took was four minutes for a stranger to tell you that an unborn child would be named after you.