Emergency leads to summer work

     By Kirk Kern
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      A few years back, Cheyenne High School senior Jacob Davis helped save his younger brother who was having trouble swimming.
      Davis was 15 at the time and saw his 6-year-old brother Luke flailing away in the water of a public pool in Dallas, where they lived at the time. Without thinking, Davis dove in and pulled his younger brother out of the water and to safety. Then the pool lifeguard took over.
      "I just jumped in," said Davis, 18. "I didn't know CPR or anything like that, but I knew I had to do something."
      Now, after completing certification to work as a lifeguard this summer at Wet 'n Wild, Davis will be even better prepared for such an emergency.
      Davis was one of 70 local youths who went through the third lifeguard program at the water amusement park. Fifty-eight of the applicants passed the tests and were hired for the summer.
      On the final day of testing, Davis had to pass a written test and act as a lifeguard in a simulated emergency.
      "It was pretty intense," he said.
      The classes ran 20 to 24 hours and the candidates had to be able to swim 200 yards in four minutes and tread for two minutes while holding a 10 pound brick. They also had to be able to swim 50 yards in shallow water.
      "The swimming part was easy," said Davis, who had previous lifesaving classes in Boy Scouts and in scuba lessons. "But the CPR part was pretty intense, especially for kids."
      The certification curriculum included adult, child and infant CPR, first responder first aid and water rescue skills.
      "This class was the biggest of the summer," said Art Perillo, aquatics manager. "This year we've been pretty lucky as far as recruitment. We've conducted job fairs at local high schools and the community college. We've been really active in recruiting."
      Seth Gordon, 18, also passed the test and is working as a lifeguard for the summer. He thought the experience would help in his goal of becoming a physical therapist.
      "It seem's like it'd be a real good summer job," said Gordon, a Northwest resident who moved to Las Vegas earlier this year from Youngstown, Ohio, when his father took a job teaching at Mojave High School. "I've never been a lifeguard before. It was pretty neat to learn the ways to pull people out of the water and do the different saves."
      Perillo said the lifeguards undergo four hours of inservice training each month and are audited by in-house personnel.
      "We get a lot more visitors to our park (than a normal public swimming pool)," Perillo said. "We have more frequent rescues and we deal with people from all over the world, so there's often language barriers."
      The water park opened last week and features more than a dozen rides and attractions, including the Royal Flush, the Black Hole, Der Stuka, the Lazy River and the Surf Lagoon. The park also features a picnic plaza, sand volleyball, games and a bungee trampoline.
      Park hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through June 3; until 8 p.m. from June 4-30; until 10 p.m. from July 1-31; until 8 p.m. from Aug. 1-21; and until 6 p.m. Aug. 22-Oct. 3.