Lifeguards Share The Weirdest Things They've Seen Swimmers Do

Are you serious?

"We once had a man come into our pool for lane swim."

"He had all the latest gear, brand new suit, cap and goggles."

"He got to the edge of the deck and did some arm circles, adjusted his goggles and dove into the pool."

"He popped up for a few seconds then promptly started flailing and gasping for breath."

"A colleague jumped in and pulled him out immediately."

"We were all really confused until he told us he had never swam before and he thought it came naturally."- shann-tastic

Some people will do anything for attention.

"Fake drowning by a woman who admitted that she wanted my attention. I wanted to drown her."- Mentalfloss1

You know you can buy oxygen, right?

"A lady once had an asthma attack so we put her on the oxygen only to find out that her oxy saturation levels were at 100%, turns out she just wanted an oxygen high."- ohshitaratoohhhshit

Thank goodness she had that life jacket.

"Life guarding was my first job when I was 16."

"I watched a little girl around 9-10 years of age dive head first, with a life jacket on, into a kitty pool of about 6 inches."

"Needless to say, she smoked her dome and I had to patch up a little cut on her forehead."- plain_ass_username

We love a witty lifeguard.

"Couple having sex in the water."

"Not as fun as you would think though."

"There's lots of kids around."

"We'd yell that 'this is a family facility, not a family making facility' and they'd always stop."- fellowneighbour

Somehow so smart yet so dumb.

"On the hottest day of the year when we were short on guards, we paid a guy 5 bucks to s**t in the pool so we could clear it for an hour to clean."- jackaloper92

Kids today and their anarchy.

"I worked 3 years as a lifeguard for my local community center."

"Our place was somewhat unique as we both had an indoor pool and water park, complete with water slide and other such things."

"There were also containers filled with pool toys and other things like life preservers, life vests, and kick boards."

"One day, while I was on break, my supervisor comes running into the break room and tells all of us (there were three of us on break) to come help control a situation in the water park area."

"Apparently, one of the summer camps' kids had rallied enough kids together and coordinated them into constructing makeshift rafts with all the pool equipment."

"By the time we made it out on deck, they had already made a motley fleet of boats pieced together with pool noodles, life jackets, and other floating toys."

"The issue however was not that they had Macgyvered this little fleet, but how the camp had split into factions and begun an all-out naval engagement in the pool."

"Pool noodles were now being used as makeshift water cannons, and things only escalated from there."

"Some of the kids had broken into our supply closet and found our stash of other water toys, super soakers, water balloons, etc., and came whooping out onto the deck."

"A few of the kids made armor out of the kick boards and vests and were wielding the buoys we use for water aerobics like clubs."

"Others had taken the water balloons to the top of the water slide and were lobbing them off in some crude bid for air superiority."

"This one girl had taken her camp shirt and tied it to a pool skimmer, waving it like a flag and yelling 'FOR THE KING! FOR THE KING!'

"It took thirty minutes to regain control of the situation, in which time one of the guards required stitches due to being pistol whipped with a water gun by an overzealous 11 year old."

"We never did invite that camp back."- RorschachtheMighty

The Strangest Superstitions People Actually Observe | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

The cycle begins.

"I once watched as another guard jumped in then performed a front active rescue."

"As she pulled the victim up he threw up all over her."

"Leading her to throw up all over him."

"And then back and forth."

"Causing both of them to start drowning."

"Then I jumped in from the other side did a rear active rescue on my own coworker as another guard saved the original victim."

"Awkward day..."- joepbrett

That can't be comfortable.

"I was a lifeguard at a camp, and this Pentecostal church came to stay, about 500 of them."

"Even in the pool, the boys would wear slacks and a belt."

"No shirt, but they'd be wearing their tan slacks, and brown belt."

"Blew my mind."- BryceGlass

Not that hunky.

"Was a lifeguard at an indoor apartment pool."

"One lady was mostly paralyzed on one side."

"She also could not swim in deep water."

"So, lady would do laps in the shallow end, but because of the paralysis, would end up swimming into the deep end where she would promptly panic."

"She did this over and over and over."

Probably these days, twenty years later, I would ban her from the pool."

"But I was a teenager at the time who certainly did not want to make any waves, so I ended up making literal waves regularly to save her."

"I would suggest that she liked being saved by the hunky lifeguard to deliberately drown herself so regularly, but I'm not that hunky."- Knave7575

Vomit worthy.

"I worked at a college pool so we had a standard Olympic sized high dive."

" I had to tell a kid that was at least 11-12 yrs old not sit under the board and drink the water falling off the people about to jump."

"I can't imagine how much a**/foot/b*lls water that kid ingested."

"It was sick."- flamingbirdsonfire69

Are you sure that wasn't a rabbit in a bikini?

"Not really in the water technically but still a head scratcher."

"Used to work at a very high end gym back in college."

"You could pay annually ~$1000 or monthly to the tune of about $120."

"Had a regular who would come in late afternoons every sat and sun to our outdoor pool."

"This lady was absolutely stunning."

"Maybe early 30's and the physique of a super model."

"Always wore a super tight purple bikini and lounged out on the stone wall encompassing the hot tub."

"Never actually in the hot tub but would lie on her back along the wall."

"Made it really hard as a 20 year old male lifeguard to concentrate on the people in the water.'

"Thank god for sunglasses."

"It was also hard to remain focused on the other patrons as this lady would proceed to then one-by-one pick the leaves off the shrub next to the wall, eat them, and hold a conversation with herself while staring into the sky."

"As the leaves would start to dwindle on that particular shrub over the course of the week, she'd move farther along down the wall and start on the next one."

"This continued every summer for about 2 years until I left for the military."

"Wherever you are lady, I hope you're doing well outside of your career calling as a deer or rabbit."

"There was also the man who got pissed when we closed the waterslide for the night so he went over to the children's wading section, took a big dump, and ran, fleeing out the side gates."

"Jokes on you buddy, we got to shut down for the day and got paid to f*ck around on my phone in the guard office."- S-S-Stumbles

No bricks allowed.

"Late to the party but I was a lifeguard for about 6 years."

"About half of my job was telling people, "as a reminder, please do not throw any of the rocks, sand or seaweed at the beach (it's crowded are you serious?!)"

"This one guy shouts back, 'can I throw bricks?'"

"My out-loud response was to ask if he had any bricks on him at the moment."

"He insisted he didn't have any on him, but could go out to his truck and get a bunch."

"I responded into the megaphone, 'as a reminder, please do not throw any of the rocks, sand, seaweed or bricks at the beac'".

'We both yucked it up a bit and went back to our respective lives'."- MrOwlsManyLicks

Father-son bonding.

"Worked as an open water lifeguard last year, and worked on a 100m long inflatable assault course."

"Throughout the hottest parts of the summer, seaweed would often be found along the edges and safety straps, the course was made out of multiple inflatable obstacles fastened together, and it was our job every morning to clean this."

"Sometimes spots were missed, as we had about 30 minutes for just one of us, the task ran on a rota, so a different person did it each day, to clean the entire park."

"Halfway through one day, a dad and his son find a strap covered in seaweed and jellyfish eggs."

"Usually people recoil and stay away upon touching the stuff, but instead these two pull the seaweed and eggs off the strap and throw it back and forth at each other for about half an hour."

"Was weird to watch, and kinda disgusting."- marcus__lfc

Literally seeing Red!

"A woman was dying her hair in the hot tub! "

'Everything was red.'

The stories are endless

"I see a whole lot at my resort park.'

"Guests wearing masks above their noses, letting the water in, doing god knows WHAT kinds of strokes."

"Dead man floating etc."

"The one thing that is probably the most common weird thing though, is little kids, 5-10 carrying multiple heavy rocks down our realistically decorated river."

"So they're sputtering and kicking hard and I just look at them."

"'Hey bud/sweety, just...drop the rocks?'"

"They look at me like I've threatened to take away their pet."- ClydeLeArtiste

Leaving his mark...

"Not strictly pool-related, but part of lifeguard duties was to clean the changing rooms at my pool."

"Anyway, we had an 8-ish-year-old kid, who we were pretty sure was a serial sh*tter."

"Every time he and his family went for a swim, there would be a sh*t left for us in the showers."

"Happened 2 or 3 times before we didn't see them again."

"Don't want to imagine what he's allowed to do at home if that's what he does in public..."

Well, that's one way of doing it.

"A bit late but this only happened today."

"Mum, prob 40s, is taking [a child], 10 for a swim."

"Nothing seems suspect, just the usual mucking around."

"Wouldn't have paid them anymore attention than the rest of the public when the kid comes running out the pool."

"First no-no, but too far away to do anything about it so I just watch."

"Kid runs up to the fountain to grab a drink."

"Normal until he doesn't swallow."

"This kid walks his ass back to the pool mouth still full of water and baby bird style feeds his mum the water so she can have a drink."

"Like I've seen some weird shit working at the pool but I've never been so weirded out."- barnacle_soap

Not cut out for the job

"As a lifeguard you are required to have 4 hours of training each month, at least where I worked you were."

"During one of these training sessions, I was the one that was chosen to be on stand."

"While I was, I saw a new guard grabbing onto one of the supervisors necks and trying to stay afloat."

"I never saw that new guard again."

"I guess they couldn't swim, and I got yelled out for not jumping."- eric12343

They could talk the talk...

"I use to be a lifeguard at a boy scout summer camp in Hawaii and it was the first day of camp which is the swim test to see who can and cannot swim."

" I have this kid walking with me and him telling me 'oh I am on a swim team' and other stuff."

"We reach the deep end and I tell him to jump in and start swimming."

"He jumps and sinks straight to the bottom."

"I am about to jump in and get him but he breaches the water and I reach the rescue tube out to him and pull hm out of the water."

"I later find out that he is in the learn to swim class."

"I guess he thought swimming was gonna be easy."- PeekClamBeDyslexic

Stories both sweet and sour

​"I'm a lifeguard at three neighborhood pools."

"I haven’t seen anything particularly shocking, but my boss shared a few of her stories with me."

"A man named James is banned from the pool for 'flashing his peepee'."

"Most recently, a person who has yet to be caught took the biggest crap in the women’s restroom."

"It was not in fact in to toilet. "

"They had decided to walk past the stalls and take a massive dump in front of the sink."

"This one I actually saw."

" A literally girl and her mom and dad come into the pool."

"I am on stand and don’t pay particular attention to them until our of the corner of my eye I see this 10-13ish girl hobbling into the pool with a sparkling mermaid tail."

"I kinda felt bad for her because this huge group of teenagers stopped in their tracks to stare at her as she proceeded to wiggle through the water."

"I was so scared that i would have to jump in and save this girl because her legs are basically bound together and swimming became extremely tiring and difficult."

"Her mom looked so proud of her and was yelling at her husband, who was visually embarrassed, to take pictures."- A-Subconcious-Memory

In and out

'One time, as I was maybe 30 minutes from closing a pool, man came into the pool area."

"My first thought was 'oh no, I'm gonna close late today', but instead of swimming laps like most people, the guy jumped into the pool, sat on the bottom against the wall for maybe 30 seconds, and then left."

"Didn't even swim a little."- -_Pancake_-

What does he get up to in private?

"When I was a lifeguard, there was this one guy I worked with."

"He was a fairly nice dude; kinda nerdy."

"Was a camp counselor, made us all listen to Glee covers of top 40 hits while we lifeguarded with him."

"But when things were slow or he was on a break, etc., me and my friend I worked with noticed he left a tab open on one of the office computers."

"The office is on the pool deck so you can sit at the desks and also look out at the pool."

"And it was videos of these sexy girls speaking ASMR telling stories or just talking."

"They weren’t pornographic, but it was just so weird cause it was definitely low-key erotic and he was just watching them on a public computer at work."

"Definitely started noticing his creepy vibes more after that."- lavendermilktea

Next time, maybe we'll just dip out toes in the water or stay on dry land.