Secrets of the City

I will NOT be linking to the story about the horrific pool accident, which even now is giving me waking nightmares. You want to read it, find it yourself.

Regarding the pool injury–that can really happen? I thought it was something Chuck Palahniuk just made up.

The CPSC warning on filter entrapment dangers.[via] There’s video of an adult trying to pull a large ball off a filter… it’s nearly impossible.

The pool drain story seriously gave me the shivers. I can’t even imagine what that was like for the girl.

Ditto. You hear about something like that happening with swim trunks or a foot getting caught, but this makes the skin crawl. We’re just talking in the office here, how hard can it be to put a small protective barrier around a drain? Just enough to keep people away from the massive suction. It’s 2007, it can’t be that unreasonable.

“Regarding the pool injury–that can really happen? I thought it was something Chuck Palahniuk just made up.”

Well, this type of evisceration was one of the cases that made John Edwards’ career. The right wing has had a jolly good time mocking that one, so I’m just waiting for them to start on this girl.

I thought I saw Esme Murphy comment that newer pools have additional safety measures, but that some older pools haven’t been retrofitted.

As a final note, I believe one of the news reports indicated that there have been attempts to address this safety issue (requiring multiple drains, in order to reduce the pressure at any given drain, shut-off triggers that shut the pump off if the drain becomes obstructed, etc.) in Congress, but have so far failed.

There’s video of an adult trying to pull a large ball off a filter

Elepnantitis of the testicles is such a drag.

Notice how we’re all talking about the one story Max didn’t link to.

I’m not talking about it. I’m shuddering and gibbering in horror.

$30 million settled out of court for a similar incident per the video. I still don’t know if that’s enough for the trauma and a life being fed through an IV and wearing a colostomy bag. Plus she wants to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else? What a tough, sweet girl.

I’m not talking about it. I’m shuddering and gibbering in horror.

Yet you sorta are…

enough to keep people away from the massive suction.

They need to talk to city pages to figure out the best way to do this.

one of the local stations quoted Minneapols Park & Rec staff as saying “can’t happen at our pools, the maintenance people check the covers everyday.” there’s four or five covers at the Brackett Park pool — two of which were broken (screw holes snapped) the last time I looked.

(which was last week)

Ugh. That poor, poor girl and that poor family. I’m not a big fan of how litigious we’ve all gotten, but I hope they sue the owners of that pool (my understanding is that it was at a private club, not a city pool) and make enough money off those irresponsible jerkwads to take care of her for the rest of her life.

Interestingly, Lifetime’s newest pool in Chanhassen did not open until noon today for “mechanical reasons”.

You can bet all private and public pools are taking a hard look at their drains after this tragedy.

What would be the pool’s responsibility regarding that incident? If the drain cover was kicked off or broken during the course of the day, it seems difficult to accuse them of being negligent. The lifeguards could have had no idea or reason to think the cover was broken. On the other hand, maybe they never check it or some screws were missing. Anyone know what generally is required of a swimming pool? (Bonus points if you quote statute.)

I’m too lazy to look up statutes (sue me, ha!), but I would presume that if a pool is obligated by law to have certain safety measures in place, and they fail to maintain those safety measures for whatever reason, then they are being negligent, regardless of how the cover was removed or damaged. They should be checking them at least daily for the very reasons you cite – in case the cover has been kicked off or broken.

If the pool was supposed to have a lifeguard on staff, and had the “Lifeguard On Duty” sign up, and the lifeguard wasn’t in his lifeguard stand but rather flirting with Cindy behind the Snack Shack, and someone drowned, I would think they’d be held accountable for that as well. I don’t think this is any different – they were supposed to perform certain duties to keep their patrons safe and they failed, miserably.

My understanding is that the issue is with the manufacturing of the pools. There’s more suction than needed. And broken/lacking covers can make the situation worse. The CPSC has guidelines for making pools/spas safer. (it’s not statute- but it’s close).

In short, I think “well, we didn’t know it was broken” is a defense that would not and should not hold up in court.

Kevin,
this case provides a quick and dirty description of negligence liability.

Pool owners = fucked. Especially because this is something they could have anticipated, and there was an easy way to fix it, and they apparently just didn’t get around to it, which is a lousy reason for a young girl to be severely disabled for the rest of her life.

Hey, dumbass, you’ve got all this info at your fingertips, why don’t you look it up. Okay, so I did. All I found was this and this I don’t know if it relates at all.

It’s not statute, it’s rule. Close enough. Still I wonder, if you check it and it’s fine, but then it breaks before you check it again, how are you supposed to know?

Incidentally, bud jr, one of my colleagues called Lifetime, they say there was a problem with the heater in the Chanhassen pool.

I couldn’t finish reading the articles in either paper during my morning coffee/paper routine.

I also couldn’t finish the horrific Kersten column today where she indicates hanging at the Playboy club with a former date. She also formally blesses “internet dating.”

So then, reading the Menard’s story, to sue the club you would need to show that their direct negligence resulted in the exposed suction drain, including the exclusion of the possibility that another pool user could have affected damage on the drain?

Uh huh.

Two routes- you show de facto negligence by virtue of the fact that the injury happened, which requires exclusive control, or you show negligence on the part of the business causing the injury, even if the instrument is not under their exclusive control. Negligence is based on lots of things- foreseeability, industry customs, controlling laws and regulations, and some other crap I don’t remember. The pool case will settle for a lot of money, because I’m betting every pool maker/owner in the country knows about this, and it sounds like there are simple ways to prevent it.

Kevin, why aren’t you in law school?

If you have a known hazard (the pool drains would qualify, as there are at least 3 other cases of similar eviscerations, and 13 drownings resulting from people getting stuck on drains), you should need to take measures to correct or secure the hazard.

If the correction or security of the hazard are susceptible to tampering, you would need to monitor them at appropriate intervals.

A drain cover that can simply be kicked off would need to be checked at much more frequent intervals than one that is screwed or bolted down.

This is not likely to be a res ipsa loquitur case like Menards, unless the plaintiff is not able to find any evidence of negligence on the part of the pool owner. The manufacturer of the pool will also be sued and may have signifgigant liability for selling an unreasonably dangerous or defective product.

Ugh. I too am morbidly fixated on the pool story. I’ve been obsessed with it for, oh, a solid 48 hours and am a few panic-y minutes away from jumping in the Bottineau pool and yanking the cover with my own two hands to make sure it doesn’t come off.

But what if your yank tugs it loose and we lose one of MNspeak’s finest to a senseless pool incident? Think of the children! Or at least Kevin.

Finally read the story. I had planned on going out for lunch before this…

I talked to someone yesterday who is an acquaintance of the girl’s parents… so this information is about 3rd hand. But it sounds like the drain cover had been broken for a while. Pool users had notified the pool staff, who would put the cover back on. But it would always come off again, because it wasn’t fixed right.

So the Minneapolis Country Club will likely be sued for a lot of money. Out of court settlement.

Paging bobby_b and his legal expertise….

What if they contracted with a pool service for maintenance?

As I see it, the club, the maintenance manager of the club, and the pool manufacturer are all exposed here.

when I left town, this was just a “freak accident”, and I couldn’t figure out what that could possibly mean.

I wish I never found out.

In other news, let’s talk about Northfield’s Heroin problem. I blame Carleton or St. Olaf. I forget which school we’re blaming this week.

Think about the heroin story for a minute. There are about 300 kids per grade, or about 3,000 people ages 16-25, not counting the colleges (which are clean, according to the cops). If there are “up to 250″ users, with habits up to $600 a day that means nearly 10 percent of people are shooting up, needing between $300,000 and a few million bucks a month depending on their level of use. That’s a lot to get out of a couple of hundred home burglaries a year in a liberal/environmentalist/bike-riding/aging hippie town where flat-screen TVs are considered shameless consumerism. What are they going to fence, some old Eagles casettes and some composting barrels?

There’s no way in hell the colleges are clean. Plus, people can steal shit from college students who leave stuff open. Trust me, people would have the craziest shit stolen at Williams and it was in the middle of nowhere in the Berkshire Mountains. My favorite posts on the student message board during the last week of school were “Help! Someone stole my safe with my passport in it. I need to get home to Hong Kong!” and “Could the person who took my 32 inch TV please return it?”