School Teacher to EMT and Lifeguard
By Bill Spring
After teaching high school English for 10 years, Geoff Rife, 37, now works dual life-saving careers as an emergency medical technician and summer lifeguard.
After an adrenaline-soaked year of responding to 911 ambulance calls in eastern Pennsylvania, emergency medical technician Rife spends his summers at the Jersey shore. But unlike the other seasonal visitors, Rife is once again on alert, and ready to handle emergencies? as a professional lifeguard with 19 years of experience.
Rife grew up in the small town of Westchester Pa., about 30 miles west of Philadelphia. As a kid he harbored dreams of professional baseball, but soon found that his true athletic calling was in the water. At age 12 he became a competitive long distance swimmer. "I spent anywhere from four to five hours a day in the pool," he remembers.
In 1984 Rife earned a swimming scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, where he majored in secondary education and English literature. After graduating in 1989, he went to work at Malvern Preparatory School near Westchester, teaching English to 11th and 12th graders and serving as a swimming coach.
At first, Rife enjoyed the opportunity to pass his love for great books on to his students, but it wasn't long before he felt that something wasn't quite right. "I didn't see a lot of discipline, not only in the school, but also between the parents and the children."
Raised by strict parents who instilled in him a strong work ethic and sense of morals, Rife found it increasingly difficult to deal with slacker students and shortsighted parents. "Like many young teachers," he now explains, "I tried to fight against this, but it eventually became apparent that I was fighting a losing battle."
Although frustrated and dissatisfied during the school year, Rife was extremely happy with his summer job. Since his freshman year in college, he had been working summers as a lifeguard for the city of Cape May, at the southern tip of New Jersey. As one of five lieutenants in the Cape May Beach Patrol, Rife patrolled the sand on foot or in a vehicle, waiting for the emergency calls ranging from beachgoers being hit by lightning to weak swimmers getting caught in strong rip currents.
With his swimming experience, athletic body and devotion to the job, Rife was perfectly cut out to be a lifeguard. Each September, however, he found himself returning to his teaching job at Malvern, where he was increasingly unhappy.
His decision to leave teaching was not a sudden one, and it didn't come easy. "It took me about two years of soul-searching to realize that I was not happy in that profession," he says. Tellingly, this period of career contemplation coincided with Rif'se getting a glimpse of a more satisfying way to spend his winters, one that would better mesh with his summertime career.
In 1999, the City of Cape May decided that its five Beach Patrol lieutenants should be trained as EMTs. Rife chose to take his practical training at home in Westchester, with a private ambulance, which he joined part-time after training was over.
"Doing it part time gave me the insights I needed to leave the teaching profession and become a full-time EMT." In 2001 Rife left Malvern Preparatory and went full time at Good Fellowship Ambulance.
Today he combines his beach patrolling in Cape May each summer with the EMT work in Westchester the rest of the year. Both jobs are extremely challenging, and keep Rife on his toes. The unique geography of Cape May can create dangerous water conditions, which increase the chances of emergencies. In Westchester, his EMT group covers a large region with what he calls "an astronomically high call volume."
Both jobs also give him the opportunity to save lives, and the camaraderie he experiences on both is important to him also. He said he absolutely relies on both teams with which he works. He would trust them with his own family's lives.
Looking back at his former career, Rife says; "Part of me still misses teaching, but I feel that I make more of a difference by working on the ambulance and on the beach. I feel like I'm doing more good."
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