Articles
Avoiding Suction Entrapment
05.15.2024
Aquatics International | Rebecca Robledo | April 2024
Last month, an eight-year-old girl died in a suction-entrapment incident at a hotel in Houston. As reported earlier, the child disappeared while swimming in the hotel’s lazy river. She eventually was found in a pipe. The cause is yet to be determined, but it is worthwhile to review the issue of entrapment, how it happens, ways to avoid it, and the requirements in the Virginia Graeme Bake…
How Music Almost Cost Me My Aquatics Staff
05.15.2024
Aquatics International | Paul Macias | April 2019
In just three days, I nearly lost my entire staff. Let me explain. As all pool operators know, preparing for the summer season is a challenging, stressful process that takes many hours of planning. But once you have your water balanced, your facility cleaned, your programs in place and your lifeguards hired and trained, there’s nothing more satisfying. In preparation for the season, I w…
Lifeguards: Training to Work as a Team
05.15.2024
Aquatics International | Pete DeQuincy | April 2024
When it comes to performing rescues, your lifeguards should be moving quickly, with an emphasis on, “doing whatever it takes to stop the drowning process, and when necessary, avoiding delay in patient care.” New lifeguards will be easily drawn to demonstrating proficiency in solo skills — solo water rescues, both active and passive, and water extrication from the rescue point…
A Spa Is Not A Small Pool
09.20.2023
Taylor Technologies
Spas and pools are both filled with water and need to be tested and treated regularly, but that's where the similarities end. Understanding the uniqueness of a spa (some people call it a hot tub)—its higher temperature, smaller volume, jetted water, and likelihood of high bather load—is important to establish a proper testing and treatment regime. While pools are generally in the 7…
Leadership by Walking Around
09.20.2023
Aquatics International | Pete DeQuincy | August 2023
It’s that time of season. Lifeguards and swim instructors are beginning to prepare for the next stage: returning to high school or college, entering college for the first time, taking a gap year, or beginning life after college. For some it’s easy. For others, it can be paralyzing. So what should I do? Immediately, I think of, “Whatever it takes to finish the season strong, …
A five-step process for better behavior at your community pool
06.28.2023
HOA Resources | Laura Otto
Q: We keep getting complaints about neighbor behavior at our community pool. It’s driving us crazy — the pool is supposed to be fun, but it’s become a sore spot at meetings. What can the board do to reign in some of the offenders? Who doesn’t love a community pool? I love this question, first because it reminds me of summer, but second because it reminds me that the bes…
Fecal Matter in Your Pool Stinks!
06.28.2023
Pool Newsletter - Washington County Public Health & Environment. June 5, 2023.
Following the CDC guidelines for a fecal accident is important to help reduce the risk of a Recreational Waterborne Illness (RWI). As indicated in the guidelines, there is a difference in bacterial contents of formed stool vs diarrhea, which determines the action required by staff. A Formed stool may contain no germs, a few, or many that can cause illness. The germs that may be present are les…
A Critical Refresher on Ventilations
05.03.2023
Aquatics International | Pete DeQuincy | April 2023
Effective ventilations should be a priority for in-service training of staff. Providing ventilations is difficult and must be practiced frequently to maintain a high level of proficiency and readiness. Provide clear messaging about why staff must train on this skill: “Doctors, nurses, paramedics, fire and first responder personnel must train routinely on ventilations. Lifeguards are firs…
Best Practices When Testing Water
05.03.2023
Taylor Technologies | Wayne Ivusich
Start the swim season with fresh reagents, and replace missing instructions and any broken, faded, or stained equipment. Reagents are perishables. Just like a head of lettuce or the pills in your medicine cabinet, the chemicals in a test kit (or on a test strip pad) will degrade over time, even under optimum conditions. The process of deterioration speeds up though when storage conditions are …
Developing and Enforcing the Rules in Multi-Use Aquatics Venues
05.03.2023
Aquatics International | Rebecca Robledo | April 2023
It’s no wonder that leisure pools are becoming more popular around the country. As aquatics facilities need to attract more and different audiences, it only makes sense to offer features that will appeal to all ages, interests and energy levels. But as leisure pools are becoming the norm, so is the need to stave off chaos. Considering all the different types of programming that can take…