“If you don’t know, go!” I remember my instructors screaming this phrase at me and my fellow trainees over and over during my first lifeguard training, cementing those words into our memory. It was the same phrase going through my head as my body hit the water of the eight-foot deep wave pool I had been staring at for hours that day. My target was a young girl, only about twelve years old. She was floating on her back, only supported by a life-jacket resting under her head instead of on her body where it should have been. Another guard and I had been signaling to her for a minute or so, as she had drifted too close to the restricted area of the pool, and she had been completely unresponsive. My heart was racing as adrenaline flooded my
