With summer officially starting in a few weeks, lifeguard recruiting efforts are intensifying throughout Nova Scotia.
“We hire a lot of high school students so our first week of supervision starts July 1. We do a pre-season training program so it’s essentially July 1 to the end of August is when we supervise our beaches,” said Paul D’eon, the special project director with the Lifesaving Society of Nova Scotia.
D’eon says annual drowning deaths have steadily declined over the past few decades.
Over the weekend, a 31-year-old man drowned while swimming in Three Mile Lake. His death is being investigated by the Nova Scotia RCMP and provincial Medical Examiners Service.
D’eon says with Nova Scotia being surrounded by the Atlantic ocean and inundated with lakes, rivers, and other waterways — there are several challenges people can find themselves in.
“People get out of their depth unexpectedly, people get caught in a rip current at our ocean beaches,” he said.
He adds that one modern-day risk has steadily increased over the past few years.
“People on their phones instead of watching their children. A little toddler can topple over and go face down and not right themselves. It takes 10 seconds,” he said.
To make up for two years of pandemic-stalled lifeguard training, hiring efforts are ongoing to attract students.
“We normally get enough applications, and we’re hiring kids out of new courses but this year we didn’t even get enough applications to cover all the positions. So we’re still short getting lifeguards to cover our beaches and full-time positions,” said Pat McGrath, aquatics manager for the Halifax Regional Municipality.
McGrath says new incentives have been implemented to entice applicants, along with free training.
“For recreational programming, we’ve increased the wages to make them more competitive. And, the Lifesaving Society of Canada last year lowered the age of certification to 15, so we made the decision to hire 15-year-olds, which has really helped fill the positions that we don’t have lifeguards for,” he said.