Tuesday, December 22, 2009

My Natural Instincts....

Friday night, we get to the Great Wolf Lodge, ran to the room, tossed the suitcases in, threw on the swimsuits and ran (literally --- we raced...I won) all the way down the hall to the water park. The girls were giggly - excited and ready to jump right in. We did some slides, played in the kiddie park, discussed the hot tub and then heard the "howl" for the wave pool.

It was great....tubes, waves and people everywhere. We were having a great time!

I heard the whistle, looked up to see this sixteen year old lifeguard pointing almost in between another mother and myself. I see something in the bottom of the pool and know without a doubt that there is a tiny lifeform drifting below near me. I take a deep breath and dive in. It took me ten hours....or possibly two seconds to get to the baby. I wasn't the closet person to it but I was the quickest to react.

I reached out my hand to pick up the baby and was already plotting which direction to go from there.....wade back towards the shallow end or swim toward the first life guard and to her side of the pool. One last kick of my feet and I could touch this precious baby's arm and pull her up to the air.......there she was in a cute pink swim suit...I grabbed her arm and realized...

....this was not a baby. I gasped under water when the thought hit me that I had just interrupted a skills test for this lifeguard. I let go of the baby and swam up. I met the eyes of the other mother, looked over to see a scared then confused look on my own children's faces. After a deep breath and a couple of coughs, I mouthed to other woman, "It was a doll."

My poor girls were scared, worried and then confused. I assured them it was just a test for this lifeguard to make sure she was paying attention, alert and able to react to her job. I interrupted her test. I had no idea and neither would have anyone else. I looked over and finally noticed the supervisor in plain clothes. When he left he smiled at me in a strange way. It almost seemed as though he enjoyed and took some sort of amusement in scaring the heck out of me. Sick, crazy man.

Thankfully, the waves were ending and the girls wanted to move on. I just wanted out of that near fake death pool. We went for a family type slide to go down together and discussed why he did what he did, briefed over the type of things that could happen in a place like that and the importance of the need for the lifeguards to be tested randomly and without warning. The slide was fun but I could not wait to hop in the lazy river as I was still feeling a little uneasy and rattled.

The girls grab tubes and we float on down. At this moment I actually start to ease up a little. We started getting back to our giggly, silly selves when we rounded a corner and there he was....baby in his arms. He was tucked back in a corner just waiting to let go of the baby and test the next victim. Ugh...done...I was done. Hot tub time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a ASS, I would have been Pissed...

Judy said...

I can kind of understand the reasoning behind the test, but, yeah, that would have ruined an otherwise fun time for me.
I don't ever recall seeing that done at Wet n Wild (Hurricane Harbor).

Anonymous said...

we're gonna need pics of you in your baywatch bikini to fully appreciate this story

Anonymous said...

A similar thing happened when we went this summer - but it was a real life adult that stayed underwater intentionally frailing about until the lifeguard rescued them. It was weird. The man was in a tube, came off of a slide, went underwater and made himself stay under. The lifeguard pulled him above water. At that point he gave her a signal that he was okay. He then got out of the water and picked up a clipboard off the table and wrote down the results of the rescue. I guess it is good that they kept on their toes there but it is awkward to those watching who aren't sure if they need to help ir not.