How to Use a Lifeguard Spineboard
Lifeguards play a vital role. Swimmers rely on lifeguards to keep everyone safe as they swim and enjoy their time in the water, whether they spend it in a lake, pond, ocean or community swimming pool. When you're on duty, everyone can enjoy the water with confidence, knowing you have their back.
Every lifeguard hopes to avoid water emergencies, but you have to be ready if they occur. You're responsible for doing all you can to save someone who needs your help in the water. You'll use various items to perform these life-saving procedures. One of the tools you need to be ready to use is the lifeguard spineboard.
What Is a Lifeguard Spineboard?
The lifeguard spineboard goes by several names, including the backboard and the pool spinal board. These names give a hint toward their purpose — they're the tool you'll use when someone suffers a back or spinal injury in the water. Spinal injuries can be severe, requiring specialized tools to prevent further harm. Spineboards are essential for aquatic spinal injury rescues.
A lifeguard backboard functions much like the stretchers used by EMTs and paramedics. Their purpose is to keep a patient immobilized during transportation. Moving or bending a patient's spine after injury could cause more damage and worsen the situation's severity. Immobilized patient transportation is crucial to ensuring the patient has the best chance for recovery. The spineboard's built-in head immobilizer and straps help make this possible.
As a lifeguard, you'll need a spineboard to give an injured person that chance for recovery until the ambulance arrives to bring them to the hospital. When someone sustains an injury in the water, you must use a spineboard if there's even a slight possibility they've sustained spinal trauma. Water can be unpredictable, especially in the ocean and other large, moving bodies of water.
The goal of using a spineboard is to remove the patient from the water without causing any more movement or damage to the spine. Make sure you're using a high-quality spineboard you can count on. The Lifeguard Store is your destination for spineboards that will help you perform a successful rescue procedure.
How to Use a Lifeguard Spineboard
You'll need to use the correct spinal board procedure in the water to save the injury victim. Knowing how to backboard and practicing the process is the only way to ensure a successful rescue. In this section, we'll take a look at how to backboard a patient.
1. Take Immediate Action
After the injury has occurred, you must take these next steps right away:
- Blow your whistle to clear the pool.
- Instruct someone nearby, either a lifeguard or civilian, to call 911.
- Send someone to retrieve the automatic external defibrillator if you need it after removing the victim from the water.
- Have another lifeguard bring you a spineboard and prepare to enter the water.
This task demands the strength and cooperation of two lifeguards. Be sure you're both ready for action after performing the steps listed above.
2. Enter the Water and Stabilize the Victim's Head and Neck
In an oceanic situation, you'll have to fight with waves and currents during the entire rescue. In a public pool setting, you have more control over what happens. Gently slide into the water to avoid splashes or ripples in the water that could disturb the victim and cause more spinal damage. Walk toward the victim if the water is shallow enough, doing all you can to keep the water calm and still for the injured person.
Once you reach the victim, raise their arms over their head and bring them to a point. This position will hold their head in place until you're ready to use the spineboard. Keep the person's body straight in the water, parallel to the water's surface. Be sure to keep their head immobilized until the end of the rescue, as letting it move after immobilization could be detrimental.
3. Place the Victim on the Spineboard and Reposition
As you keep the victim's head immobilized, the second lifeguard must maneuver the spineboard through the water so the victim can rest on it. Have the second lifeguard told the spineboard on its side and dunk it straight into the water. The spineboard will want to float back up. As this happens, the second lifeguard will move the spineboard, so it slowly rises flat against the victim's back. Make sure the victim's head is in the spineboard's head restraint box.
Then, you can prepare to secure the victim to the spineboard by repositioning them. The second lifeguard should rest their forearm on the victim's chest, holding their head by the chin. Lower the victim's arms so they rest on their abdomen. Next, make your way to the wall of the pool to give you more leverage and security. Hold this position so the second lifeguard can dunk floating rescue tubes under the spineboard's head and foot, providing necessary support.
4. Secure the Victim to the Spineboard
The second lifeguard should then attach the victim to the spineboard to avoid further movement. Begin with the top strap, securing it under the victim's arms and over their chest. This strap keeps the patient stabilized when tilting the spineboard up and out of the water during the removal process. Then, fasten the remaining straps over the victim's entire body, being sure to make a firm connection with the straps' Velcro or buckle mechanisms.
Direct your attention to the victim's head, which you have been stabilizing up to this point. Have the second lifeguard apply both sides of the head restraint to the patient's head as you slowly remove your hands. Secure the head restraints with the included strap, attaching it above the forehead.
5. Remove the Victim From the Water
At this point, you and your partner are ready to take the injured person out of the water. Both of you should stand on either side of the spineboard and lift it so the top rests on the pool's gutter. Secure the spineboard as your partner exits the pool and takes a position behind the victim's head. Once they have secured the board, move to the foot of the board and prepare for removal.
On your count, have your partner pull the spineboard toward them as you push from your position. Keep the spineboard as low to the ground as possible to avoid dropping it and hurting the patient. Once you've removed the patient, cover them in a towel or blanket and apply first aid to any other injuries as you wait for the medical professionals to arrive.
Be Ready for Spinal Injuries With Spineboards From The Lifeguard Store
A spineboard is an essential tool for lifeguards everywhere. We make shopping for spineboards easy and convenient. You can do it all from the comfort of your home, and you can have confidence in your purchase thanks to our superior customer service quality products. We offer affordable prices, no-hassle returns and fast shipping, to name a few of the ways we enhance the online spineboard shopping process.
Contact us today to learn more or talk to a representative at 800-846-7052. Invest in swimmers' safety by keeping a spineboard from The Lifeguard Store on hand at all times. We look forward to equipping you with all the lifeguard gear you need.
