Everybody into the Pool…Shoes
  Since 2009, the Lombard Park District has had an attraction that could challenge the popularity of its traditional Lilac Time floral display. The award-winning Paradise Bay Water Park, the only outdoor public pool in Lombard, helped the agency win the National Gold Medal in Excellence in Parks and Recreation. With five pools, four water slides, fountains, geysers, a vortex, a water walk and many small spray features, the park is an aquatic extravaganza for its estimated 120,000 annual visitors.
Covering the park’s six acres and all its features keeps the staff of 50 lifeguards in nearly constant motion. A lifeguard’s job description can include climbing up and down chairs during a rotation, roving the facility, responding to emergencies, walking in a zero-depth pool, standing during scanning and performing compact jumps during rescues. While these are standard job tasks for lifeguards, they are not always as easy as they might sound.
According to Debbie Whitcher, Aquatics/Facilities Manager for Lombard and a Safety Coordinator for PDRMA, the pool area’s wet concrete and pool bottoms are a key source of slip and fall accidents for patrons and employees who ignore the posted signs prohibiting running. In 2009, for example, a head lifeguard moving quickly to a rescue slipped and fell, breaking his wrist and interrupting his music studies at college where he played drums.
 The next season, at a PDRMA training workshop, Whitcher noted a discussion about requiring shoes for all lifeguards. “I brought the ‘thought’ back to my management staff, and we all agreed it was a great idea, and we’d try it. Shoes were added to the uniform requirement and the rest is history,” she says.
Training the staff was a snap, Whitcher said. “None of our staff balked at the idea of wearing shoes, especially when we told them our slip-and-fall story, and we are now going on our second year of requiring shoes. We tell them at pre-season training that light-weight canvas tennis shoes are part of their uniform along with suit, t-shirt, shorts, visor, sunglasses, sunscreen, water bottles and whistle. The message is driven home by a write up in their employee manual and pictures in the staff office.
“We ask the staff to purchase their own shoes — the costs were minimal, between $5 and $20 - and that they are light weight canvas shoes and fit snugly on the feet. All guards must exhibit the ability to perform a rescue while wearing their chosen shoes,” she explains. She added that management reserved the right to reject a pair of shoes that seemed inappropriate, but all shoes passed the first season.
Whitcher said PDRMA’s extensive list of slip, trip and fall training materials, always used in staff training, was particularly helpful when they began talking about the shoes for water park staff. “It was a valuable base of information,” she says. “During the 2012 season there wasn’t a single slip and fall accident among the water park staff members. Even better, patrons asked staff why they were wearing shoes at a water park, so we feel our lifeguards were able to educate the public about the dangers of slip and fall accidents at a water facility.”
PDRMA Resources
Note: PDRMA suggests members develop a formal written policy requiring the use of specific footwear for identified work tasks.
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