Sean McGowan becomes a lifeguard, despite the challenges

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Sean McGowan dived into a pool at the Skudin Swim complex at Nickerson Beach in Lido earlier this week, and demonstrated how he would save someone who was drowning.

Typical stuff for a lifeguard.

But McGowan, 24, has had to overcome many challenges to become a Skudin lifeguard. He was born with Down syndrome, and attends a special school in Plainview.

But he always wanted to be a lifeguard. During two years of training, he never allowed his challenges to keep him from passing a difficult test during the past few weeks to become a Nassau County-certified Grade 1B lifeguard, which allows him to work at the Skudin Swim pool.

To pass the test, McGowan had to swim 10 laps of a 25-yard pool nonstop, and dive 10 feet down and bring up a 10-pound brick. He also had to demonstrate a rescue of a passive victim, a cross-chest carry of an active one, as well as escapes and releases (for when a panicked victim grabs a lifeguard), and pass a written multiple-choice exam.

“I’m very proud of myself,” McGowan said as he sat near the Skudin pool on Tuesday. “I started swimming when I was a baby.”

Woody Skudin, who returned to the family surfing and swimming business after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and is now the supervisor of lifeguards, has been McGowan’s mentor for the past two years. “He took the same lifeguard test everyone else takes,” Skudin said — though McGowan was not timed for the swim. But he was held to the Nassau County standard in every other skill test.

“He is very high-functioning,” Skudin said of McGowan. “He doesn’t run from a nervous situation, like high waves. He likes the tough workouts.”

McGowan works as a lifeguard at the pool two days a week. He also attends an Association for Children with Down Syndrome school in Plainview.

He has a professional companion and supporter, Caleb Urrutia. The two met a few years ago. “He loves the water,” Urrutia said. “It helps keep him in shape.”

McGowan’s love has always been the water. His father, Patrick, a union stagehand at the Jones Beach Theater and the Nassau County Veterans Memorial Coliseum, took him to a YMCA pool in Bellerose, Queens, when Sean could barely walk. He and his parents, Patrick and Debbie, live in Valley Stream. Debbie works with children with disabilities in Queens.

“He was in a baby seat in the pool,” Patrick recalled. “That was the start.”

Debbie learned about the Skudin swim school through a friend, and enrolled her son there when he was about 12, she said. “Woody said he was a great swimmer,” Debbie said. He always kept up with his swim lessons, she added.

Her son took to the water as if he were born to it.

“We’re very proud of him,” his mother said. “He never gives up. He just wants to keep on going. I was so hooked after I took him” to swim at Skudin for the first time. “The second day he was there, I called in sick. I had to see him swim again.”

Earlier this week, Sean showed off his skills as Woody Skudin and some other lifeguards cheered him on. He showed how he could save someone while wearing a rescue tube, and how he could put the victim in a position to cling to the side of the pool.

Three years ago, Debbie McGowan said, Skudin suggested that her son become a lifeguard. “I said, ‘I don’t know about that,’” she recounted. “But here he is, a lifeguard.”

Asked how he felt about his achievement, Sean smiled. “Happy,” he said simply. “Very happy.”