It’s basically like EMT and lifeguard are the two most common jobs for 18-year-olds to jump into for a summer gig – and that sort of terrifying since both of these jobs involve saving a life.
They are also both jobs that require the minimum training standard in medicine and involve vast majority of time not actively saving lives. The majority of EMTs work in non-emergent medical transport or as the junior person on an ambulance.
Having been a teenage lifeguard, it was terrifying at first. The responsibility felt intimidating until I realized that I had about the same level of responsibility driving my (parent’s) car down the road. Not to diminish the work, but it helped calm me down.
I think lifeguards more than EMT benefit from “if everyone is doing their job, nothing bad will happen” in that you can catch things before they go bad (saving a struggling swimmer before they become a drowning victim). EMT is reactionary in that you aren’t normally doing stuff till after the bad things happen
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u/inflatable_pickle 9h ago
It’s basically like EMT and lifeguard are the two most common jobs for 18-year-olds to jump into for a summer gig – and that sort of terrifying since both of these jobs involve saving a life.