Mar03WaterparkReport

It’s a beautiful, sunny afternoon and the park is full to capacity. The sky is blue, the air is filled with the laughter of happy guests, and the teenage lifeguard who is on duty at the largest and busiest pool is about to doze off. Nobody notices a small child sinking limply to the bottom of the pool—until it is too late.

Luckily, this is fiction. No one’s life is in danger. Luckily, you don’t have to deal with a multimillion dollar lawsuit. When it comes to protecting your waterpark guests, the minute-to-minute well-being of your lifeguards is imperative. Apart from their specific training, a successful lifeguard needs to have a high level of vigilance, tracking accuracy, rapid sensory reasoning, and attentiveness at all times. But lifeguards are human, and they will suffer from the same ups and downs in alertness that we all do—they will become fatigued and they will put your park at risk.

Fatigue is fundamentally a physiological issue and not a behavioral one. Lifeguards certainly do not intend to feel drowsy and create risk. Have you ever struggled to stay awake in an important business meeting after lunch but your eyes just keep drooping?

Human physiology creates two alertness low points during any 24-hour period—roughly 3 a.m. and 3 p.m. The biological clock, or “suprachiasmatic nucleus,” controls our “circadian rhythms” and is found in the oldest part of the brain. It slows down our body and mind to help us sleep at night and during the siesta time of the early afternoon. Alertness is just another rhythm like body temperature or blood pressure. This means that your lifeguards and guests are at particular risk of reduced alertness in the early afternoon.

Fatigue can occur at any time of the day, not just at the low points, and is obviously made worse by a lack of sleep. This can be particularly prevalent in adolescents, who typically have owl sleep characteristics. Believe it or not, it’s their body clocks and not their attitude problems causing them to wake up late. Teens naturally fall asleep late at night and want to sleep late in the morning. Our preferred bedtime gets earlier as we age. The early wake-up calls necessary for high school students significantly interrupt a teen’s sleep pattern during the week and cause cumulative sleep deprivation. Teens are, on average, more at risk of fatigue than adults.

Research clearly shows that fatigue reduces vigilance and slows senses, resulting in a failure to respond to warning signals, clouded reasoning ability, impaired judgment, increased panic in an emergency situation, and failure to follow emergency procedures. Hopefully those experiencing the side effects of fatigue won’t be driving a car or on duty as a lifeguard.

The key to reducing the risk of a fatigue-related incident at your park is to understand the alertness rhythms of your lifeguards. Train your staff to understand their physiology—help them prepare for work appropriately and maintain their alertness levels during their shift. A key part of training should focus on how to recognize fatigue and what to do to help improve alertness. Lifeguards should recognize that they are fatigued if their eyes wander out of focus, their head droops, they slouch in their chairs, or they find themselves stretching, fidgeting, or yawning. There are many tricks to boost alertness, from chewing mint gum to isometric exercises, but for lifeguards experiencing fatigue on duty, the best solution is to remove them from their posts and allow a 15-minute nap.

If the worst happens in your park and an incident occurs where an employee was inattentive, it will help to have documented the training given to your staff about fatigue management. Fatigue is a risk that can be successfully managed, and accidents don’t have to happen. For further information or advice on training programs, please e-mail kkerin@circadian.com or call 781/676-6911.

Kirsty Kerin has a Ph.D. in the physiology of fatigue and works as a consultant for Circadian Technologies, Inc. (CTI), to reduce the costs, risks, and liabilities of safety-critical operations. Offices in North America, Europe, and Japan service CTI’s global client base, including over half the Fortune 500. A free learning center of information is provided at www.circadian.com.