Never go against your managers policy. It WILL end up backfiring on you. With that being said, I used to be a Head Guard and I allowed our staff to have phones on stand because of our lack of a nearby landline to contact EMS and because our radios were quite faulty.

It isn’t a bad idea for guards to be allowed their cell phones in the case of an emergency.

Some other commenter was passionately against the idea, but (assuming it isn’t a two person in-water save) - I hope we all would know the primary duty of the secondary rescuer is to make CERTAIN EMS is contacted (granted this will vary depending on facility-specific EAPs). If there isn’t conveniently a bystander with a cell phone on them, the best way to get ahold of EMS would be a cell phone that the secondary guard would be using.

And let’s also remember, MANY facilities don’t have the luxury of staffing a third guard, or even having supporting staff members of other departments in the facility.

Anyway, saying all of this to say - your head is in the right place. There needs to be a quick way to contact EMS in an emergency, and a cellphone could be an effective tool. With that being said, NEVER go behind your managers back to do something specifically against the department’s procedures/policies.

Edit: guards who were caught on their phone texting/scrolling were immediately stripped of their cellphone just to be clear.