How a Veteran Lifeguard Spends His Fridays

New York Times

2 days ago

Javier Rodriguez is a beach creature. Even after having dedicated more than 40 years to being a lifeguard, first as a 17-year-old growing up on the Lower East Side and now as a lifeguard coordinator for the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, his ideal day is still spent in and around water.
And that includes starting every morning with a swim at his neighborhood pool in Queens.
'I love swimming — it's great exercise,' said Mr. Hernandez, 64, who is responsible for training and mentoring lifeguards and running the department's qualifying exams for the city's 53 outdoor pools and 14 miles of beaches.
From February through June, he teaches classes for new guards, and then in the spring and summer, he conducts a flurry of certification and re-certification exams. During high season in May and June ('It's like tax season,' he said), he may oversee more than 150 tests a week, racking up hundreds of miles on his 2019 Chevrolet Impala shuttling between Queens, a testing site at the Chelsea Recreation Center and the beach in the Rockaways, where he is based.
'It's always good to hear when a kid tells me that they had their first rescue and that they were able to apply what they learned at the lifeguard school,' said Mr. Rodriguez, who has also been a lifeguard training instructor for the Parks Department since the mid-1990s.
Mr. Hernandez lives in a four-bedroom home in Floral Park, Queens, with his wife of 32 years, Fleurette Rodriguez, 62, a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines. They have three adult children: Olivia Hernandez, 30, an emergency medical technician for the New York Fire Department; Antonio Hernandez, 28, who works for a beverage distribution company in Rochester, N.Y.; and Sophia Hernandez, 25, who will soon begin medical school at Touro University in Henderson, Nev.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited.
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