How to Scare the Heck Out of the Swim Coach

So I'm on the pool deck, coaching my Monday night Swim Conditioning class, and something on my radar screen just goes off. I look over at the hot tub and my heart stops cold. There's a body floating motionless in there. Semi-casually, so as not to freak anyone out, I hold the class up a minute and walk briskly over to check it out. As it turns out, it's just a lady who enjoys relaxing in the hot tub in kind of a dead-man's float position. Whew!

I'm always amazed at how quickly that radar reacts to small changes in the environment, especially around the pool. I pulled a kid out of the hot tub once that I wasn't even consciously aware was there. I was lap swimming and almost not of my own volition I vaulted out of the pool toward the hot tub. My subconscious brain had noticed that there was a kid there, and then there wasn't. He was under water and his mom (sitting just a few feet away) had not noticed. With the bubbles on, you couldn't even see him under the water. Scary! I guess once a lifeguard always a lifeguard. Sometimes when I'm at the pool in the summer with my kids, I find myself counting noses in the pool and keeping track of the bathing suits: "1,3, 7, 9, kid in red suit...yep... blue trunks....pink ponytail...orange duckie....11, 14...." and I won't even notice I'm doing it.

So my heart is back to normal now, and at least you know if you ever swim or even float prone in the hot tub on my watch, you're safe.