Job description:Must be able to act quickly, make good decisions, and be prepared to save people’s lives.

Everyone who swims, whether it is in a public or privately owned location, depends on the person who holds the whistle and patrols the water.

People don’t understand that a person’s life is in your hands, Lori Johnson, a lifeguard for SIUC, said. A lot of people say that a lifeguard just sits out in the sun and gets a tan, but it becomes exhausting for us to be out all day in the summer heat.

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A lifeguard must also have good people skills, communicate well and be able to calm patrons down.

Johnson, a junior from Tremont, said lifeguards must be certified to work at the four campus locations:Campus Lake Beach, Pulliam, the Recreation Center and the Campus Boat Docks.

A skills test similar to the Red Cross test is given to perspective lifeguards, which includes diving to the bottom of the 16 ft. Recreation Center pool to pick up a brick and treading water with a brick for one minute. A written test is also administered to complete the evaluation.

Johnson said her role as lifeguard is to enforce the rules and ensure the safety of the patrons.

One experience Johnson had while she worked as a lifeguard in her home town was when a little girl who had been practicing swimming in the shallow end decided she could swim in the deep end and jumped off the diving board.

She wasn’t able to swim after she jumped in, and she just looked at me with these big eyes, and I said, I’m coming.’ She went back to the shallow end after that.

According to Johnson, one of the biggest problems with patrons is that they do not want to wear life jackets while in boats on Campus Lake.

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When we catch people not wearing a life preserver, we have to fine them, she said.

Other responsibilities include attending an in-service training day once a month, where lifeguards practice their backboarding skills. Also scheduled is a once a week swim where a lifeguard will swim two sets of 500 meters under a ten minute time period.

The campus also offers swimming lessons, with private lessons for adults to be made by appointment and a children’s swim class scheduled on Saturdays.

Johnson, who has been a lifeguard at SIUC for two years, said during this summer semester, 35 to 40 people filter in daily to the campus lake facilities.

A lot of people don’t realize what nice facilities we have out here, she said. We have two beach volleyball courts and rake the beach daily to keep it clean.