Personal experience: not everyone is allowed to save people drowning in the USA

Many have seen the TV series "Baywatch". It shows the life and work of the Malibu beach lifeguards in California. In the film, pumped up, beautiful rescuers always save everyone. But this is a movie. And how things are in reality, the author told blog "How Wrong to Live in the USA" on Yandex.Zen.

Photo: Shutterstock

Next - from the first person.

This story happened in California with my best friend in August. He has a birthday at this time. And it so happened that since the late 90s he celebrates it on Lake Nasimiento. As a rule, we came there for 2-3 days.

The celebration program changed from year to year, with the exception of alcohol and kebabs or barbecues. The number of guests each year was also different. This is understandable - it is quite far from populated areas. The lake itself is surrounded by hills, in a lowland. There is almost never wind there, and the daytime temperature averages 30-35°C.

For me, this is the perfect place to stay. There are practically no people there. But civilization is surprisingly combined with virgin nature. The lake itself is relatively small. Compared to Baikal, Ladoga, Seliger and other Russian lakes. There is no full beach with sand and sun loungers.

There is a certain social center from civilization: a pharmacy shop, a toilet, showers, rent of all kinds of toys for fun on the water, rent of boats of different power and speed. By the way, a fun fact: to rent a boat you only need a regular driver's license. There is a petrol station for boats. The price of gasoline there is about 2,5-3 times higher than in the state as a whole.

A ranger, or a forester in our language, keeps order on the lake and its surroundings. This is a separate law enforcement branch in the United States. He has a police uniform (only the chevrons are different), weapons and all police licenses. In addition, he also serves as a forester. He has an off-road vehicle, an ATV depending on the terrain, and on this particular lake a patrol boat.

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The lifeguard on this lake was listed only by title. His main job was renting boats.

There is also a camping site. You set up your tents and live. Tables, water, electricity are included in the purely symbolic cost. If my memory serves me, about $ 20 per day per seat.

But behind this center of civilization -wildlife at its best. There even bears (smaller than ours, but still) and cougars roam, in the USA they are called mountain lions. Warning signs are posted everywhere about this. People usually take weapons with them for self-defense. Once a wild boar with boars even came to our barbecue.

On this particular birthday, my friend’s sister gave him a royal gift - a luxurious, powerful and quite expensive brand new boat. She brought it straight to this lake to give it as a gift and test it.

Since my friend’s birthday fell on weekdays, there were few people on this lake. So no one bothered to celebrate. Even cougars and bears began to respect this event and did not come either. Moreover, drunken people strived to boast of the destructive power of their weapons - on cans and bottles.

At some point, they decided to go on a boat across the expanses of water. Some time ago, a friend of mine fell deeply in love with the song “I'll Kill You, Boatman.” As you might have guessed, this boat had an excellent sound system. And every other time this song sounded over the surface of the water at the full power of the speakers.

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During another trip, my friend drunkenly fell overboard with a bottle of some kind of alcohol. The detachment did not notice the missing soldier and the boat sped off into the distance without him. It was getting dark. It was getting dark. The sun hid behind the hills. The friend was wearing a good-quality life jacket, and he perceived the fact of his loneliness like Eeyore - very philosophically: now his loss will be discovered and they will come to save him.

The guests were less philosophical and stubbornly did not want to return for him. My friend tried to call them. It was no use - the boat disappeared from sight. But the bottle of alcohol was almost full and he did not let go of it when he fell overboard.

When the bottle was already noticeably empty, a ranger crept up to my friend on his boat and startled him with the question: “What are you doing here?”

During the conversation, my friend grabbed the ranger's boat with his hand. He ordered him to remove his hands “from state property” because it was illegal to touch this property with his hands. A friend asked: “Aren’t you going to save me?”, to which he received the answer that “this is the job of a rescuer.”

“The rescuer is not at work,” the ranger informed a little later, having first tried to call him on the radio.

The friend felt chilly and tried to climb onto the ranger's boat on his own. He opposed this attempt and threatened with arrest.

Soon a boat presented to him appeared on the horizon. There was my friend's sister. He was rescued, the ranger did not help, but did not interfere. I did not speak about the arrest any more.

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