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Automated Pool System Saves Swimmer
An anonymous reader writes "An automated swimmer tracking system installed in a pool in Wales has saved a young girl who just collapsed and sank to the bottom, by paging lifeguards when it could not detect her moving." This is the first time a UK swimmer has been saved by the £65,000 Poseidon system since it was installed in March of 2003.
Check out this gem (emphasis mine):
Francois Marmion, general manager of Vision IQ, which developed Poseidon, said: "It is virtually impossible for lifeguards to see everything that is happening in the pool all of the time, given the warm, noisy and crowded environment in which they work. "Thankfully she made a full recovery, but just a minute or so longer under the water and she would have suffered brain damage or died."
Does he think he's a doctor or what?
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Ah good, now that she has been saved, she can spend the rest of her life paying back the cost of the system!
Afterall she is living on "borrowed" time!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
wow, every single line, including your sig, has some sort of insult attached. Do you want to come to a house party???? I bet you're soooo much fun and get invited out all the time!
Fuck off.
Jeremy
I've been to lots of pool where the lifeguard were sitting at a desk reading and not watching the water or in some cases there stayed inside an office. Now most of these pools were lap pool where only 'hardcore' swimmers spend time, but still a pulled muscle in the deep end and even the best swimmer can go down.
On the other hand I've been to other pools, and worked at one with really good lifeguards. The pool I worked at had Ellis lifeguards and our training and expectations were a orders of magnitude higher that the traditional Red Cross lifeguards at most pools (sorry I have to shame any organization that tells you to treat someone for a neck injury before getting the person breathing). I doubt the girl in the article would have made it to the bottom at my pool. A good lifeguard can tell which swimmers can swim and which can't by watching them. Those that can't swim get watched more, and if they do something stupid, like jumping into the deep end, in seconds you'll know if their coming up or not.
I think that system like these will only decrease the number of good lifeguards hired and we will see more and more lifeguards sitting behind desk or in offices reading because "the computer is watching the kids". The £65,000 cost of the Poseidon system would have been better spend hiring more and better trained lifeguards and keeping them well trained.
When did humans enter the hippie's endangered species list?
Last time I checked, there were something like $6 billion of us on this planet and rising, which is supposed to cap at 10 billion or so.
Maybe we should start letting the weaker ones keep out of the gene pool for the rest of us.
They might actually start watching the fucking pool. What, was this girl invisible or something? Was the water opaque?
now the teenbopper lifeguards can flirt more and pay even less attention to their jobs.