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I wouldn't call Egypt a third-world country, developing maybe altho those terms are really outdated. Variances happen for different reasons. In the US today many communities have shortages of qualified lifeguards as the associated agencies did not get to recruit and train as usual. It might be that some shortcuts were taken in this resort, perhaps.
TBH Its not unheard of with in the Middle East for so called rescue professionals not to be actaully trained up. Chances are that they probably had been trained but the resort never did drills so the skills were never practiced, resulting in poorly prepared personnel. The article isn't overly clear on the situation as it is based of a panicked and grieving individuals memory which is never a reliable source of information.
My eyeballs popped out of my head when I read that line about how she didn't have seizures "all the time." But after I stuffed them back in, I reread it and wondered if it might be a mistranslation. Maybe what he said was more like "she took her medication and never had seizures anymore." I'm not fully up on the current dive medicine; I know asthma used to be an absolute contraindication but now it's considered acceptable if it's well-controlled. Is the same true of epilepsy or nah?
I have a (seemingly rare?) mentality where I have a natural urge to protect people or take action, and have done so on numerous occasions even though large numbers of people stand there doing nothing. It can be a MASSIVE liability though, which is why I often stay away from places/locations/activities where certain kinds of events might occur.
It is curious anyway; at least if the person was actually a "lifeguard" at a body of water, they would have training to manage common life-saving-water-related incidents. (It could certainly be culture related, although I have no local knowledge.) It's like a car-mechanic that doesn't know how to work on cars.
I somewhat side with this view; if she decided to take the risk, and chance was not on her side, that's on her and perhaps it was worth it to her. There's always a chance I'll die scuba-diving, probably somewhat similar to my chances of dying while driving. However, there are certainly things I can (and have) done to mitigate that risk, such as redundancy, monitoring my mental/physical state, etc.
There's certainly a difference between neglect that is a risk to others, versus a risk to self.
Odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 103 according to the national safety council.
