You are a lifeguard at a beach. You see a drowning swimmer. You rescue that person. But, you make a mistake. You see you work for a private company that has the contract for public beaches. That company has rules. One of those rules says you can’t go past a certain, shall we say, line in the sand. And so, since the person who was drowning was in water just beyond that “line in the dsand” you are fired. Think this is just a little fable by a wild-eyed liberal who hates capitalism? Au contraire, mon ami. Here is the story on CNN about this very same lifeguard.
Tomas Lopez says he never thought getting fired would make him so popular.
Since he was terminated as a lifeguard Monday for disregarding a protected area to save a swimmer, the 21-year-old from Florida said his phone has been ringing off the hook with journalists trying to get his side of the story. He is set to make an appearance on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” Thursday night. […]
Orlando-based Jeff Ellis and Associates, the company Lopez worked for, said lifeguards cannot go beyond the perimeter of the beach they are responsible for overseeing. […]
But that day, a beachgoer rushed to Lopez’s lifeguard station to alert him to a man who was drowning.
The man was some 1,500 feet outside the company’s protection zone in an area where signs warn visitors to swim at their own risk, a supervisor with the company told CNN affiliate WPTV. […]
After the near-drowning, Lopez said he was asked by his supervisor to complete an incident report.
“At that point I knew I was going to be fired. I knew had broken the rule,” Lopez said. “In those cases, we are supposed to call 911 and hope they get there in time.”
Yes, well a company can’t have its employees violating important rules about their designated area just to save someone’s life, now can we. That would be –well — intolerable, wouldn’t it?
