Lifeguarding
Here is the story written up with name changes:
"I don't know, I just don't feel she has it in her to be a lifeguard." I sighed. "She's a great girl-I love her sense of humor-but you know, not every person is cut out for every profession…" "Okay, so she won't go into lifeguarding as a profession-I'm sure she doesn't plan on doing that, anyway." Mrs. Lieberman, my principal, gave a chuckle. "But just from taking this course all these weeks, I'm sure she knows the basics. Can't you just pass her?" "Mrs. Lieberman." I struggled to keep my voice even. "You know my policy. I don't feel I can 'pass' a student and certify her as a lifeguard unless I feel comfortable enough with her skills, to the point where I would let my own kids swim under her watch. How can I take the achrayus otherwise?!" "You're right, you're right…" The principal hurried to assure me. "It's just that…I happen to know that Mindy Weitz is going through a lot right now. Her family situation…is complicated. For her to fail one of her subjects…even if that subject is only Physical Ed, or Lifeguarding, in this case…it would crush her." She fell silent, and I too could not think of a way out of this dilemma. I teach P.E. in the local Bais Yaakov, and in tenth grade, that means Lifeguarding. The school has its own indoor, Olympic-sized pool, and years ago, at the request of enough parents, the administration had decided that for the tenth graders, a lifeguarding course would take the place of regular gym class. It usually works out just fine. Most of my students love swimming, and they want to become lifeguards so that when they apply to sleep-away camp as staff, they could check off the "lifeguard" box. But every so often, I encounter a student who is just too uncoordinated, or too fearful, or too…I-don't-know-what, to pass the course. Like Mindy Weitz this year. And while legally and morally, I absolutely could not certify a girl who was not passing the course, it didn't look like I could fail Mindy either… There was only one option here. I took a deep breath, willing myself to not think about my overstuffed schedule, my son's upcoming bar mitzvah, or my teething baby, and said, "Okay, Mrs. Lieberman. I'm going to give her extra tutoring and practice on my own time. Hopefully with enough practice, she'll get it. And then we can pass her." And that's what I did. Hours of practicing the nuances of CPR with her, mouth-to-mouth breathing, checking for airway obstructions, pulling a drowning victim out of the water, and all the other skills necessary to obtain an official Red Cross Lifeguarding certificate. Was it an easy job? No. Mindy really did not have a knack for this, which made teaching her these skills quite difficult. Was I feeling overworked, underpaid, and more than a little stressed out with all this extra work on my hands? Absolutely. But when, after all those overtime hours of practice, Mindy Weitz passed the course-truly passed it, no inflated marks here-I did feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment. And to be honest, I felt pretty good about myself, too. I had done a chessed for a struggling girl, and other than the principal and my husband-and of course Hashem-no one even knew about it. And that was that. By the next week, I had put the whole thing out of my mind and moved on to the next project at hand: entertaining my kids during midwinter vacation. Then the call came. It was Mindy Weitz herself, calling from Orlando, Florida. Apparently, that's where her family had gone for their midwinter vacation. But Mindy didn't sound like herself. It took a few moments until I realized that she was crying. Crying?! What in the world…?! I tried to make sense of what she was saying, in between sobs. "…in the water…no one was there… she wasn't breathing!" "Mindy? I can't understand. What are you trying to tell me?" Slowly the full story emerged. The Orlando villa the Weitzes were renting had its own backyard pool, and Mindy's four-year-old sister, who did not know how to swim, had fallen into the water. Before anyone realized what was happening, the little girl had silently gone under. Miraculously, a minute later, Mr. Weitz had noticed and quickly pulled the little girl out of the pool. But by then, she had already stopped breathing and was blue and unresponsive. Half-crazed with hysteria, Mr. Weitz could do nothing but stand there and scream, while holding his blue-faced little daughter in his arms. "HELP! SOMEONE, HELP ME!" Mindy heard the screams and ran over. And although her father did not know how to help his little girl, Mindy, my student, did! She knew exactly how to perform CPR on a drowning victim…because I had just taught her this, and practiced it with her, over and over again! Mindy saved her sister's life. She did mouth-to-mouth breathing and was able to get a pulse even before the ambulance came. And now she was calling me, her Lifeguarding instructor, to tell me the story…and to thank me. And me? I just sat there, after I'd hung up the phone, and cried. I'd thought I'd been zoche to save one Weitz girl, yet Hashem, in His infinite kindness, had allowed me to be His messenger in saving another one too.
It’s all true, down to my principal not wanting me to fail this student who failed the cpr and skills test until I gave her one on one lessons. Down to the flack that i get for following Red Cross standards and not just passing everyone who tries. Down to the father not knowing cpr and hysterically screaming instead of calling 911 till his daughter came out and started cpr and grabbed the toddler from him.
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