Pool Safety Is a Serious Responsibility

By Larry Bodine, Publisher of The National Trial Lawyers

With summertime temperatures in the DC area nearing 90 degrees, sweltering local residents are drawn to swimming pools in backyards, hotels, and public spaces. Hidden by the sparkling waters is the statistic that about 10 people die every day from unintentional drowning.

Drowning ranks fifth among the leading causes of unintentional injury deaths in the United States, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which can be viewed in this pdf. The most likely victims of unintentional drowning include:

  • Men (80% of people who drowned)
  • Children ages one to four
  • African Americans

Lack of swimming ability is a leading cause of drowning, but so is negligence by pool owners. Factors like the lack of pool fencing, the absence of close supervision, and the availability of alcohol are frequent causes of drownings.

Lifeguard Could Not See

A six-year-old kindergarten student drowned at her father’s apartment complex pool during a summer 2011 family outing in Richmond, Va. An aunt testified that when she last saw the girl, she was holding on to the side of the swimming pool kicking her feet. The lifeguard was sitting in a lawn chair 20 feet away from the pool — a position that did not allow the lifeguard to see the entire pool.

The child, who could not swim, went into the deep end of the pool and disappeared. By the time she was spotted by her older sister, she had been submerged for five to 10 minutes.

The girl’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the apartment owners and the pool management company that supplied the lifeguard. Under Virginia law, the owner and manager of the swimming pool have a legal duty — which they cannot delegate to family of a swimmer — to maintain safety in the pool. After extensive discovery, they settled the case for $1.5 million, plus medical and funeral expenses.

Swimming pool management companies that provide lifeguards should have at least $20 million insurance limits, according to Carolina Pool Management. “Recent swimming pool lawsuits include $14 million and $16 million judgments,” the company says. “We simply recognize that a catastrophic event can happen anywhere, at any time, even at the best-run pools.”

Safety Measures

To see how easily a person can disappear from view in a pool, watch this video. It is important to remember that:

  • A drowning child often slips silently beneath the surface — no cry for help, no waving arms;
  • Once underwater, they may not come back to the surface — no bobbing up and down, no gasping for air;
  • A drowning child can “disappear” underwater — an increasingly disturbed water surface causes submerged bodies to become invisible; and
  • Other factors such as glare and reflection can also cause a body underwater to disappear.

For these reasons, lifeguards should frequently leave the lifeguard stand to see the bottom of the pool better. The CDC also emphasizes the importance of close supervision by adults who know CPR. Young children should wear life jackets — not air-filled or foam toys such as “water wings” or “noodles,” which are not life jackets. And finally, consuming alcohol should be avoided by swimmers and supervisors.

At private pools, a four-foot high pool fence should completely separate the pool area from the house and yard. Homeowners should use self-closing and self-latching gates that open outward with latches that are out of reach of children. Floats, balls, and other toys should be removed from the pool and surrounding area immediately after use so children are not tempted to enter the pool area unsupervised.

Pool safety is a serious responsibility. For every child who dies from drowning, another five get emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.

Larry Bodine is a lawyer and journalist who writes frequently on personal injury law. He is the Editor of Law Practice Advisor and Publisher of the National Trial Lawyers and is the former Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com. Readers can follow @Larrybodine on Twitter, on Google+, and on LinkedIn, where he moderates several law-related groups.