Xàbia Red Cross starts training the next lifeguards

The sessions have tested potential lifeguards on the skills required to rescue a bather in trouble.

The future lifeguards of Xàbia, on the Arenal beach this Saturday.

Tuesday 30th March 2021 | CARLOS LÓPEZ; translation MIKE SMITH

Last weekend, the specialized training courses organised by the Cruz Roja de Xàbia to recruit people prepared to join the beach surveillance service in Xàbia began. The organisation’s spokesman Javier Server explained to XAD that the applicants have had different theoretical training sessions and this past weekend the practical training began. In total, 50 future lifeguards signed up.

Server said that during the practical part, the Cruz Roja staff submits applicants to complicated tests in which physical and mental abilities are put to the limit. This is because when they are helping a bather they are under great pressure. But in addition, during the exercises, the sea conditions allowed them to seek how to take advantage of them and work on how to get outof the tides and undercurrents that form in the central part of the Arenal beach.

Another part of the training will consist of the development of practical exercises on the cliffs of Xàbia, such as the areas of Ambolo, La Granadella or El Pope, something for which the Xàbia team is a national reference.

Server and the Cruz Roja team also began the beach surveillance service for Semana Santa at the weekend, which it will be the last scheduled service due its current contract with Xàbia Council concluding at the end of the holiday period.

The next contract is already in the tender process and one of the new features this year, apart from the extension of the surveillance period (May and early October), includes the the requirements of current staff be taken on by the winning company that takes over the service, be it the Cruz Roja or any other of the sector.


Click below to read the original article in Spanish on Xàbia AL DÍA