Margarent Lizzotti, aquatics assistant program supervisor, and the team at the Eleanor Misener Aquatic Centre, were recently recognized by the Lifesaving Society for the lifeguard and first aid training the centre provides.
Margaret Lizzotti, aquatics assistant program supervisor, and the team at the Eleanor Misener Aquatic Centre, were recently recognized by the Lifesaving Society for the lifeguard and first aid training that the centre provides.
Margaret Lizzotti longs for the day when drowning deaths become a thing of the past.
As Brock’s aquatics assistant program supervisor, Lizzotti is doing her part to achieve that by running one of the largest Lifesaving Society training programs in Ontario.
Every year, the team at the Eleanor Misener Aquatic Centre turn out thousands of people ready to patrol pools and administer CPR thanks to skills they learn through the lifesaving, lifeguarding and first aid training programs offered at Brock.
And once again, the centre has been recognized for its efforts to make the world a safer place with two awards from the Lifesaving Society.
Last month, Brock received the Arnold H. Morphy Cup, awarded to the affiliated single facility with the largest lifesaving program in Ontario, and the Kirk A. W. Wipper Cup, given to an affiliated university or college with the largest lifesaving program in the province.
This is the 18th year in a row that Brock has won the Wipper Cup.
“We are very proud of this award,” Lizzotti said. “However, in the aquatic world, the awards are not what we strive for. What’s most important is teaching, getting that message across about how to be safe when people are near or in water.”
“It’s really the passion we have here as a collective group,” she added. “I’m so very proud of our staff, and leadership instructors and examiners in the region because they are on the front lines, teaching kids to swim, how to be lifesavers and lifeguards.”
Brock was thousands of points ahead of its closest competitor for the awards, the University of Waterloo. Points are given based on the level of training a person receives from those administering Lifesaving Society programs.
In both categories that Brock clinched, there were about 10,000 points dividing the University and U of W.
Though the Lifesaving Society gives the awards based on numbers alone, Lizzotti said they recognize something far greater.
“We strive to educate all ages in drowning prevention education,” she said. “With drowning statistics that we have witnessed in the past few years, learning how to swim is a life skill.”
