Garrett Zerener was sitting in his lifeguard office Tuesday when he heard three whistle blasts from across the Wiedemann Natatorium — the pool at the Heskett Center.

“Are you serious right now?” he said, looking out across the pool. “Is he jumping in?”

Three whistles enact the EAP, or emergency action plan. Usually, it means the lifeguard on duty is jumping into the pool to save a swimmer in trouble.

Zerener rushed across the pool to see what the problem was. The other lifeguard, Ru Min, was standing with a patron who had hurt her head during a fall in the locker room. When Zerener got there, though, he discovered it wasn’t real.

“We’re running a drill,” aquatics coordinator Vanessa Stoner said, “making sure our guards know what they’re doing in case of an emergency.”

The two lifeguards, now joined by a third, Kelsey Buller, proceeded to backboard their victim, a fellow employee at the Heskett Center.

“I was not expecting that today,” Zerener said.

But that’s kind of the point.

“Sometimes we need to perform things that we don’t expect, so it’s kind of good training,” Min said.

After the incident, the lifeguards debriefed with Stoner and other aquatics supervisors. They evaluated how they acted in the situation and what they could do to improve.

 “Once we knew what was going on, I think we handled it pretty well,” Zerener said in the meeting.

Lifeguards help keep patrons safe in one of the Heskett Center’s lesser-known features: the pool, located on the north end of the building.

Zerener said he thinks students oftentimes forget about the pool when trying to stay in shape.

“A lot of people like to lift, run or whatever,” he said. “But honestly, dude, swimming’s got a lot of benefits. If you’re a runner, and you get injured, the doctors do send you to the pool.”

The lifeguards are all students at Wichita State and have many reasons for working there.

Jonathan Reeder, a junior physical education major, said he teaches swimming lessons and helps coach the Aqua Shocks, a local swim team.

He teaches kids learning to swim, kids hoping to go into competitive swimming and even adults — some of which are students.

“It’s incredibly convenient,” Reeder said. “It’s always clean … the staff is always nice — what’s not to like about that?”

Min said he likes the challenge. He said he especially notices how difficult the job can be when they do drills with the head, neck or back injury they drilled on earlier.

“The patrons that come in and, also, I’m able to do my homework on my break which is really nice,” Zebrener said.

But overall, it boiled down to one thing.

“I love the water,” he said. “I’ve always loved the water and I’m really passionate about it.”