Across the United States, numerous business sectors require CPR certification, including lifeguards. It comes naturally – lifeguards are on the barriers of saving the lives of drowning victims. If a lifeguard doesn’t know how to handle a drowning emergency, the victim may die within minutes!
Moreover, there are serious brain damage risks from drowning, and the person must get chest compressions and artificial breaths as soon as possible. These emergencies become even more subtle because a drowning person can easily become a victim of sudden cardiac arrest due to hypothermia and other symptoms.
Here, we’ll dive deep into the lifeguard CPR certification courses and how you can acquire them and renew them in due time! Let’s jump in!
How & Where to Acquire a Lifeguard CPR Certificate
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of certified and licensed CPR certification training facilities across the United States. Usually, these training centers are certified by organizations like the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross. Institutions like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration accept CPR certification cards issued only by these two institutions – preferably the American Heart Association.
However, training centers can also acquire licenses and certification audits from other institutions, such as the National Safety Council. The trick is that OSHA, NSC, and similar credible and authorized institutions impose various restrictions and amendments for lifeguards and their CPR knowledge. Otherwise, you won’t be able to work as a lifeguard or be penalized for doing so!
The best way to get a lifeguard CPR certificate is to enroll in courses licensed by AHA and the American Red Cross. Moreover, these institutions have special CPR certification programs designed particularly for lifeguards. You’ll learn more about the human body, the symptoms of hypothermia, infant CPR, and much more.
What Will You Learn in the Lifeguard CPR Certification Classes?
Even though training centers, such as Birmingham, offer lifeguard CPR certification classes, they’re not all the same! For example, some training centers structure their programs more around the physical symptoms and how to react right after pulling the victim out of the water. Others are more focused on the hypothermia symptoms and the risks of brain damage.
Nonetheless, all the training centers will teach you how to perform high-quality CPR on a drowning victim. Furthermore, you’ll learn all there’s to know about infant and child CPR. Most drowning victims are usually kids and children who don’t know how to swim or have suffered cramps in the extremities.
Keep in mind that all the lifeguard CPR certification courses are held by trained professionals and skilled instructors who’ll test your knowledge on-site. Following is a brief analysis of the various aspects of the lifeguard CPR certification classes and the most probable curriculum you’ll go through during the training.
Specific Fields of Interest of the Lifeguard CPR Certification Classes
Similarly to cardiopulmonary resuscitation classes for other professions and groups of employees, the lifeguard certification has specific fields of interest.
- Drowning symptoms – You’ll be studying a lot about the various drowning symptoms, such as hypothermia. Moreover, you’ll learn how hypothermia affects the heart rhythm and the possible risk of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SDCA) due to drowning.
- CPR on different age groups – An essential part of the program is the curriculum’s topic for performing CPR on various age groups. For instance, a drowning child will require different cycles of combined chest compressions and artificial breaths than a grown person or an elderly.
- CPR on victims with various histories of diseases – At the lifeguard CPR certification classes, you’ll learn how to administer CPR and Automated External Defibrillation on people with different histories of diseases, such as various heart conditions, bone fractures, and more.
- Emergencies when you should avoid administering CPR procedures – There are numerous emergencies when you should avoid the performance of CPR. For example, if you’ve found yourself near an electrical field, the person is still breathing, or their heart has a normal rhythm.
- Swimming classes – Swimming classes are an essential part of the whole life-saving procedure after drowning. If you don’t have enough strength and don’t know the fast-swimming techniques, the person may be dead within minutes.
- Lifeguard Management – Managing the whole workplace and the life guardian process of other people’s lives is also essential!
Lifeguard CPR Certification: Renewal & Recertification
As with any other CPR certificate, lifeguards should also renew their certificates every two years. Organizations like the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross mandate certificate renewal because of the refreshment of life-saving skills and continual practice. Recertification is crucial for lifeguards because they have to be updated and keep up with the newest scientific findings, which can save many drowning victims.
So, every lifeguard must renew their certificate every two years. Furthermore, the lifeguard CPR certification granted by training centers like Birmingham, for example, tends to stick to classical coaching methods in person. However, you can acquire all the materials in digital form and start the classes online. At the end of the course, you’ll have to demonstrate the skills on-site, in and outside of water, in front of a professional and licensed instructor.
Furthermore, the training centers will allow you to access and download your lifeguard CPR certification card and carry it with you in a digital form everywhere you go!
The Correct Performance of CPR on a Drowning Victim
Unfortunately, there aren’t unified rules for the administration of CPR on all drowning victims. However, you can divide them by the victim’s age and history of disease. For example, if you perform CPR on an adult drowning person, you’ll have to administer the high-quality CPR procedure, which consists of 30 chest compressions on every two resuscitation breaths.
On the other hand, if you perform CPR on a drowning child, you must be very careful! You perform chest compressions of no more than 2 inches the depth of the child’s breast. Furthermore, you’ll have to administer 100 to 120 chest compressions every minute.
Lastly, sometimes you’ll have to skip the chest compressions if the person has rib injuries or other fractures with an inherent risk of further damage to the internal organs. All these aspects of the correct performance, including much more, will be conferred to you during the lifeguard CPR certification classes at reliable and licensed institutions similar to Birmingham.
Lifeguard CPR Certification: The Price
Each training center has different offers, although the curriculum has only minor alterations depending on the certified trainer and the instructor team. Across the United States, the average price for enrolling in lifeguard CPR certification classes at training centers like Birmingham ranges between 60$ and $100.
You must consider that within this median price, you’ll also get First Aid, BLS, and Automated Defibrillation Classes, essential for lifeguard employees. Moreover, for this price, you can also get all the learning materials, such as handbooks, manuals, guidelines, certification cards, etc. It depends on the pricing policy of the particular training center and AHA’s guidelines and licenses.
The average price for the training supplies usually ranges between $15 and $30 for handbooks and manuals, $5 and $15 for digital and reference cards, and $20 and $80 for whole digital courses. When you add up the prices of all the training supplies, the costs for applying, and the price for a certified lifeguard CPR instructor, the price can go up from $150 to $200.
However, you can realize particular benefits such as discounts. If you take CPR certification classes by following the blended or online learning methods, you can get almost all the materials in digital form and thus save a lot of money, time, and effort. On top of that, if the company or the lifeguard organization administers you along with other employees to the course, the organization can realize a significant discount.
Final Words
Lifeguard CPR certification is crucial for saving drowning victims’ lives. In the United States, more than 4.000 people unintentionally drown yearly, or 11 deaths daily. Children are most often the victims of drowning. Nonetheless, adults can also suffer SDCA, or severe arrhythmias, due to hypothermia caused by drowning.
That’s why CPR certification is an integral part of the responsibilities and obligations of a lifeguard. CPR, BLS, First Aid, and AED are something you must know by heart if you want to work as a lifeguard and save peoples’ lives! To do so, you can apply at the numerous training centers, similar to Birmingham, across the US and get your certificate within weeks!