Girls Drowns At Pool Party While Florida Lags In Pool Safety Standards
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Girls Drowns At Pool Party While Florida Lags In Pool Safety Standards
by Eddie Farah
These are the sorts of stories we hear far too oftenin the summer. Florida leads the nation in the number of children who drown in swimming pools.
Our condolences go out to the family of a six-year-old girl drowned at a pool party in the Arlington section of Jacksonville this Saturday. About a half dozen children were in the pool, which the sheriff’s office reports was ”cloudy”.
The girl went under the surface and none of the adults at the home saw her. One person tried to resuscitate the girl but she was pronounced dead after being taken to Wolfson Children’s Hospital.
Infant Swimming Resource is one way to train babies to protect themselves from drowning.
And there is pool safety equipment that could help too.
But last June, the state Building Commission just stopped requiring new pools have a safety-vacuum release system. That is a device that automatically detects when a drain has an impediment blocking it and shuts off, cutting the suction that may be pulling a child to the bottom of the pool.
Later this year, new codes go into effect and the safety vacuum-release systems on new pools will remain an option. That resulted from the pool industry trade association pressure that people should use, “his or her own independent judgment,”according to a story in the Tampa Tribune.
Paul Pennington has a company called Vac-Alert that sells the devices. He was successful in getting Florida to require a vacuum release device in 2002.
But last June he says, and records show, he was kept out of the discussion on the new pool building codes.
The pool builders association contends that the vacuum-release systems don't work if hair or limbs are entangled. And besides, they give a false sense of security to homeowners, the group argues.
Of course people should maintain their pools, have multiple drains to spread around the suction, as well as anti-entrapment drain covers to avoid accidents. But wouldn’t a little extra security, such as being able to shut down the pool if someone is stuck be needed in an emergency?
The safety vacuum-release system is reported to be the gold standard of the building industry.
Maybe it's timie for parents, pool safety experts, the public, and the Florida Department of Health to become members of a "building commission," which are all appointed individuials.
Safety devices or not - supervision is still your best preventive measure to stop child drownings.