I started thinkng about this after swimming this morning at ASU and once again seeing that the 3 guards on duty were not in any of the chairs but instead were in the office texting and playing on duty.
So what happens if God forbid a swimmer is injured or dies in workout (I guess even if the guard is on duty)...can they sue the coach?
I know USMS has an insurance program for clubs and being to lazy wonder is anyone knows if it covers this?
I also wonder how many paidand/or volunteer coaches have any type of contract for this sort of thing?
This thread gives me the willies. I'm currently assisting with our summer league team. There are NO lifeguards on deck during our practices with sometimes up to 85 kids in the pool at one time. AND some of the younger ones start off barely knowing how to swim. The strange thing is that our summer league governing body (whose leadership thinks it rules the swimming universe) doesn't require lifeguards or ANY certifications for its coaches. I think I will be investigating both my coverage and the implementation of certified lifeguards on the deck during practices.
Yes, that is a cause for some concern. I would hope that there are at least 4 coaches on the deck with that many swimmers and that the younger, less experienced swimmers are in shallow lanes and/or in the shallow wading area of the pool.
And I can understand the position as our local management folks just hit our summer team with the requirement to have a dedicated (i.e. 3 coaches with WSI, LG and pool operator certs aren't sufficient) lifeguard on duty during any practice that occurs when the pool is normally not staffed. This has added an additional $225/week ($15/hr for 15 hours) to our team's costs for an 10 week season.
But this summer we have to eat that cost as we were not given enough heads up time to be able to raise the fees to cover it. Unfortunately, this new requirement will necessitate an increase of $15 per child (and that wasn't the only thing that they hit us with, we're looking at an overall increase from $80 per child to $125 per child for SUMMER league :bitching: ).
While I can understand that you can't put a price on safety, you also have to be realistic about cost versus risk. In 45 years of operating this team without dedicated lifeguards on duty during practices, there have been zero serious injuries and zero deaths. So we are not being forced to mitigate a risk of loss of life,we are being forced to mitigate a perceived risk of being sued. And that FEAR of being sued is driving some very expensive changes that may or may not kill the team.
Sweet - this will mark the annual beginning of "Toss 'Em All" Wolf versus "Kind and Gentle" Geek for Summer League officiating. I bet Wolf already has a few 5-6 year old shrimps crying themselves to sleep after a DQ.
Yeah, any parent who had a kid drown because the coach sent the 15 year old lifeguard out to his car to retrieve his cell phone, saying "I've got the pool covered," really ought to just suck it up and say "That's life." Hate to inconvenience anyone with a pesky lawsuit over something as insignificant as the loss of a child.
Indeed, this would be a tragedy. I think the issue, however, is how concerned should any coach be about getting sued.
For outright negligence, a coach needs to be the one to suck it up. The problem is that even if the coach has done absolutely nothing wrong, he can still get sued and it can take getting far into the lawsuit (summary judgment stage or even well into the trial) before the coach is out of the case. In the meantime, the poor coach has had to go through a lengthy deposition, lost time from work to be prepared for depositions and trial, has lost sleep, and is filled with anxiety.
Makes people like myself who just want to help out my kid's summer swim team a little reluctant, no matter how well I might be insured. So, each time I want to help out in something and am fully insured, is it fair that I should just be prepared to be sued at any moment? Instead of this being the "cost of doing business" situation, is this not a cost of being a volunteer situation?
Is it o.k. that the cost of being a volunteer is that I risk getting sued? I don't think so. It is, however, a reality. I guess I'm willing to take the risk instead of living my life in fear. Coaching kids is very rewarding to me and I suppose worth the slight risk that I might have to be a party to a lawsuit.
