Video shows lifeguard at Riverside Apartments pool trying to drown himself (updated)

Police and a lifeguard pull another lifeguard out of the pool at Riverside Apartments on Memorial Day. (YouTube)

Update 3:49 p.m. Friday: The Fairfax Police released a statement this afternoon adding more details to their version of the May 30 incident at the Riverside Apartments pool. The statement also includes a defense of the officers’ actions by Chief Edwin Roessler, and an explanation of the department’s procedures during such an incident.

Among the new details provided by police:

• Prior to losing consciousness under water, the lifeguard had submerged himself in the deep end of the pool twice for significant periods of time before coming up for air.
• Despite his erratic behavior, the police said the lifeguard was breaking no laws and not acting in a threatening manner, and therefore officers could take him into custody prior to his near-drowning.
• The lifeguard became combative while on the ambulance ride to the hospital, forcing paramedics to pull over so police could assist in restraining him.

Read the full statement here.

Original story:

A man with a cell phone captured the bizarre Memorial Day incident where a lifeguard at a Huntington-area pool apparently tried to drown himself as Fairfax County Police officers watched.

According to the police’s news release on the May 30 incident, officers were called to the Riverside Apartments on 5860 Cameron Run Terrace after a lifeguard began acting erratically. The police cleared the pool as the lifeguard, speaking only Polish, continued to be unresponsive to the police.

In the video below, the lifeguard enters the pool and submerges himself in the deep end. He stays underwater for 2 minutes and 40 seconds before a man, identified by police as another lifeguard, dove in and pulled the unconscious lifeguard to the surface. Two police officers then jumped in the pool to help bring the lifeguard to the wall, where other officers pulled him out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc8OisiY0yU

The police began performing CPR on the lifeguard immediately, and eventually revived him. The lifeguard then became combative towards police, according to the police.

Some onlookers can be heard in the background of the video questioning why the police did not intervene sooner when the lifeguard did not come up.

A Fairfax police spokesman told WUSA9, who first reported on the video, that officers did not jump in to rescue the man because he had not previously indicated that he wanted to harm himself, and that once it became a rescue situation it was wiser for the other lifeguard to pull the man out.

“The officer would’ve put his life at risk if he would’ve jumped right in with all of his gear on. And then we would’ve had to rescue two people as opposed to one,” the spokesman told WUSA.

In another odd twist, Fairfax County Fire and Rescue workers responding to the scene are seen using a ladder to climb the fence to access the pool. It is not clear why they did not use the pool’s gate.