Faulty Pool Drains Can Cause Injuries and Death

I don't swim. Just never learned how to when I was growing up. I used to go out to the river and splash around in the shallow part when I was younger, but that was about the extent of my water experience. Now the river that I went to has signs posted that the water is much too polluted to swim in anymore.

A lot of people tell me how much I'm missing by not swimming. Nothing is better than taking a cool dip in the swimming pool on a hot summer day they say. I don't know. I think that air conditioning would be cooler and a lot less wet.

I also have never suffered from a severe sunburn, athlete's foot, or those things that are found in some fresh water that get into your ears and then burrow down into your brain. I've also never been to the beach, so I've never been stung by a jellyfish either. I hear it's painful.

It looks like it might be a lot of fun going to the beach, but all that sand would probably be irritating to your skin. And why engage in an activity (swimming in the ocean) that must be so dangerous that a trained rescue worker has to sit there and watch over you just in case something happens. Oh, and I don't like sharks either.

Oh, there's another danger to swimming in a pool that you would think just takes place in the movies, but it really happens. There has been one case so far this year. Here's the unlikely scenario: You notice a quarter that is lying on the floor of the pool and you decide to go after it. It sits right near the pool's drain. As you grab the coin and flip over in the water to head for the surface, your trunks get a little to close to the drain opening.

Suddenly your trunks are sucked into the drain and you can't come up for air. You scream but nobody can hear you. Eventually you drown. Sounds unlikely doesn't it? But it has happened, mostly to children.

According to CNN, this other unlikely scenario happened a few-years-ago in 2007: A six-year-old girl complained of stomach pains after coming out of the kiddie pool. She looked pale and eventually collapsed before her parents could get her into the car.

After she was rushed into surgery, her parents got the dreadful news: The little girl had been disemboweled by the suction from an uncovered drain at the bottom of the pool. After 16 more surgeries, including several transplants, the little girl died. The same thing happened to another little girl just this year.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has recommended that you install an approved safety grate in your pool. According to CNN: " If you own a home pool, make sure federally-compliant drain covers are installed properly. Also, check to see if yours was one of the 1 million recalled this spring."

To me, being disemboweled or drowned by the drain grate of a swimming pool is just one more reason that it's not safe to go in the water.

Source: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/17/the-pool-safety-hazard-you-dont-know-about/?hpt=hp_bn6