BANGOR (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- It's officially summer here in Maine, but with summer weather in full swing, comes summer safety concerns.
The Bangor Parks and Recreation will open both the Beth Pancoe and Dakin pools this weekend. But before they can open their facilities, they have to hold training for their life guards.
"They are learning everything. They are learning rotations, how to rotate, and back boarding if there's a spinal injury or if there's someone in the pool that is unconscious what they do if someone just kind of jumps wrong and hit their head in the pool." Bangor Parks and Recreation Assistant Director, Debbie Gendreau said.
2.5 million kids are injured in accidents every summer and many of those accidents occur when they're playing in the pool. To help prevent these accidents, public pools have rules to keep kids and adults safe.
"We don't allow running on the deck or driving head first," Gendreau said.
According to safety.org, water slides are among the most dangerous summer toys and Bangor Parks and Recreation doesn't allow people to wear life jackets or goggles when going down the slides.
"If it's a life jacket it can get caught on the slide so that's a no go. And with goggles it's because a lot of kids come down the slide and the goggles come flying off their head and then they're looking on the bottom of the pool for them and that gives a risk of another kid coming down and landing on top or something like that." Assistant Supervisor, Patrick Kearns said.
During this weeks training, some of the life guards were "on duty" while others pretended to be misbehaving kids. This gave the on duty life guards an opportunity to practice blowing their whistle and help an injured person.
There can be hundreds of people who come out to use the pools on any given day. Both Bangor facilities will remain open through the end of August.