CUDAHY (WITI) — A high school swimmer who has made it to the state championship several times is hard at work in the water — even when he’s on summer break!

“When I came into it, I wasn’t expecting to save lives, but when I got into it — it really changed me,” Tristan Grams said.

Grams is a senior swimmer at Cudahy High School.

When he’s racing through the water in competition — he’s still in the water — helping to save lives.

“I figured if I already have my swimming skills, I might as well put them to use in something I can have a value to the community for,” Grams said.

Grams is a lifeguard at Sheridan Pool, and he says he never expected he would save the lives of 10 people in just two years on the job!

“It isn’t just about having fun. It’s about saving lives and helping people,” Grams said.

Grams says he learned what being a lifeguard was all about on his second day on the job.

He says it was a cloudy day with just a few people in the pool. He says the lifeguards often consider days like this one to be worry-free and easy.

But as Grams was scanning the water, he witnessed a man in his 20s drowning.

“I looked out and there was a person in the water. The scariest part about people drowning is they don’t make a sound at all. It’s silent. I looked into the person’s eyes and saw that they were drowning, so I jumped in,” Grams said.

Grams says the man panicked and tried to pull him under. Grams was able to calm the man, and helped him out of the water.

“I grabbed onto him and brought him to the wall and they were like ‘thank you, thank you. I’m so glad you were here to help me.’ From then I knew I wanted to keep on doing it,” Grams said.

Since then, Grams has saved several lives.

“We’ve had people of all different ages. It’s usually people in their 20s — because they think they an swim well, but they don’t realize it,” Grams said.

Grams will be swimming at Carthage College next year — and plans to study biology.

Being a lifeguard has inspired him to go into the medical field — but he says he doesn’t see himself stepping away from life-guarding.

“It’s one of those things where you get into it and say ‘I’ll do it until I get into college,’ and then it turns into an 8-10 year job because you just love it so much,” Grams said.

Grams says everyone should learn basic first aid — saying “you never know when you might have to step in and save a life.”