Lifeguards are trained to reach or throw before they go in. Real courage includes knowing which risk is yours to take.

Rescue training is as much about not becoming the second casualty as it is about helping. The order matters: use whatever keeps you out of the water before you put yourself into it. That is not timidity; it is the difference between helping and doubling the problem. Nerve without that order just produces two people in trouble.

For whatever you might get called on to help with, learn the low-risk move first. The number to call, the person to fetch, the thing to throw. Decide it now, because nobody works it out mid-panic.