South Florida Personal Injury Blog

West Palm Beach personal injury attorneys Andrew Alitowski and William Moore advise all pool operators – even homeowners with small backyard swimming pools – to heed new federal swimming pool safety guidelines. Swimming pool drain cover advocates say that old-fashioned pool drains are faulty. The suction can trap children, who cannot escape and often drown in those circumstances. Swimming pool injuries caused by the lack of drain covers can cause horrifying and often fatal injuries to children, including disembowelment. When that occurs, the strong suction from the drain literally pulls out part of the child’s intestines. In other cases, children who are rescued from the swimming pool will have permanent scarring, paralysis, and other injuries.

Palm Beach accident attorney Andrew Alitowski advises parents that supervising their children playing at a pool – while important -- is not sufficient to prevent the devastating injuries caused by pool drains. Instead, parents should verify with the operators of the pool, perhaps the condominium association or park authorities, that the drains are properly covered and in compliance with the new federal law. If the pool drains are not in compliance, it is not safe for your children to swim. Have your home swimming pools fitted with the new drain covers before allowing your children in the pool to cool off when the weather heats up in the coming months.

Florida already has more small children drown each year than any other state, as well as a very high number of swimming pools due to the warm winters and hot summers. Parents in the West Palm Beach area should take care to protect their children from this particular harm.

See the new drain covers in a CNN report here:

The federal drain legislation went into effect on December 19, but some states are not adequately enforcing the law yet. The law was enacted in response to the deaths of a number of children, notably 7-year-old Virginia Graeme Baker, who was killed when she was trapped on the drain of a hot tub at a graduation party in 2002. Baker’s twin sister rushed to get their mother, who was only able to pull Baker out with the assistance of two other adults. The girls’ mother describes her deceased daughter as having been “essentially cemented” to the bottom of the hot tub. Baker was the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker. Her mother began a crusade to prevent other needless deaths, which has culminated in the new federal swimming pool drain legislation.