Lifeguard training to Red Cross Volunteers
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| Malta Red Cross Volunteers who attended for the Water Rescue Course with Mr Etienne Micallef, Mr Eric Grech and Mr Alberto Rossano. |
This year a group of Malta Red Cross Gozo Branch Volunteers completed successfully a Water Rescue course. All volunteers passed the course are now qualified to work as Lifeguards in beach post. The tuition and organisation of the course was done by Mr Etienne Micallef, master instructor, and Mr Eric Grech, assistant instructor. The course started in June with a group of twenty-five Gozitan Red Cross volunteers and it was hosted at Kempinski Hotel in SanLawrenz.
The first lesson started with five minutes debriefing about what the course included and what we would be asked of as water rescuers. All lessons started with some warming-up activities and then we were taught some basic skills of swimming, like the freestyle, going underwater (apnea) and the frog (rana).
Although this may sound easy, the training sessions showed how wrong we were! Even though we believed that we were good swimmers, we had to strive hard to successfully complete the Water Rescue course. By time we were taught and understood that the course is not only intended to teach us rescue techniques but also to enhance our stamina and improve our performance in water. Infact Mr Micallef and Mr Grech carried our regular tests to assess our abilities.
Some of the course practical sessions where made in sea. In these sessions the Water Rescue Ambulance ‘Tricheco’ was used frequently to make our training more realistic. Master Instructor Etienne Micallef showed us good practices how to use radio communication and other useful equipment used by lifeguards in water rescue.
The course finished by a practical exam at Xewjni Bay on 6 August. Mr Alberto Rosso Rossano came over from Italy to assess the course candidates. Fortunately, we all passed the exam with excellent remarks from Mr Rossano.
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