An examination of the severity of aquatic incidents

Authors

Lyndsey K. Lanagan-Leitzel, Eastern Connecticut State UniversityFollow

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25035/ijare.10.04.07

Disciplines

Exercise Science | Health and Physical Education | Kinesiology | Leisure Studies | Outdoor Education | Sports Sciences | Sports Studies

Abstract

Lanagan-Leitzel (2012) found that lifeguards do not consistently report incidents when free-viewing aquatic scenes and miss some incidents that should be considered critical. This could have been because they did not know what incidents were critical to monitor or because they were busy monitoring other incidents. In the current study, lifeguards and non-lifeguards were presented with video clips of isolated incidents and rated the severity of each on a scale of 0 – 7. The lifeguards reported greater mean and maximum incident severity than non-lifeguards. Further analyses of lifeguard responses revealed that severity ratings were only moderately correlated to the report rate in Lanagan-Leitzel (2012). Some of the incidents, though under-reported in Lanagan-Leitzel (2012), were given high severity ratings when isolated in the current study. It is proposed that lack of report in Lanagan-Leitzel (2012) may have occurred due to attention being diverted to other critical incidents. Future research should utilize eye-tracking to assess the relationship between severity and monitoring.

Recommended Citation

Lanagan-Leitzel, Lyndsey K. (2019) "An examination of the severity of aquatic incidents," International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education: Vol. 10: No. 4, Article 7.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25035/ijare.10.04.07
Available at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/ijare/vol10/iss4/7