Girl Vs. Pool: A True Story

While true, this was not a personal experience. It has been written as it was told to me. Names and situations have been changed, for obvious reasons.

So we're out patrolling on this extremely hot day when all of a sudden, we get the call.

We're the first to arrive at the scene. A typical suburban house, more upper class than my neighborhood. I get out of the cruiser and I'm met with frantic little girls in bathing suits, crying and squeeling. One takes my hand and rushes me to the back of the house. I can already see the pool from the side yard, but it isn't until I actually set foot in the back yard that I see the pocket of blood hovering near the deep end.

For the first minute all I could actually concentrate on was the blood. I had never seen that much before and it wasn't even on the ground or sprayed on a wall, it was in a crystal clear pool. It looked so surreal, like some living edgy art piece some drop outs would think is so deep. It almost looked like a living thing, I was surprised at how it just sat there longer than you'd expect blood to sit in water.

When I reach the other side of the pool I'm then met with a frantic mother. She's crying and squeeling as much as the little girls. I can barely understand her ramblings and act like I'm having a conversation with her. No, I don't always do that, it's just I needed to know what I was dealing with and at the scene of a horric accident, the frantic mother is the last person you want to communicate with.

Her husband comes from behind me out of the house. He's holding one of those bandages anyone can get at a pharmacy along with some peroxide. He's the person I want to talk to. I suggest the mother have a seat and calm down so I can talk with her husband. We walk over to where the rest of the three adults are. A girl lies on top of a pool towel on the ground. She looks very pale and the woman sitting next to her is doing her best to keep her calm while assissting the girl in holding her side.

I asked the father what exactly happened. He tells me that she swam up to one of the pools filtering holes and that she must have pressed up against it so hard that it numbed and finally started ripping the skin on her side, because she didn't start crying til she saw blood in the water. I at first don't believe him, that this girl must have either been up against the damn thing for hours on end or that she must have tissue for skin. Well, I looked on in disbelief, but there it was a nice gaping wound a bit smaller than a baseball, bleeding out the girls side. I even saw what I first thought was just bunched up aggrevated skin from what had happened, but would later discover it was a piece from the girls organ.

The paramedics arrive and I'm left to calm the crying mother and friends. The girl was taken to the hospital, had an operation, given some blood, and had to watch what she ate for a couple of weeks. To this day she's fine and healthy.

What I can't get out of my mind was how her dad must have felt about the pool. I don't know if he had the filters altered or the pool removed altogether, but I'd like to picture a man walking out to his patio every morning. His coffee cooling in his right hand. His shoulders broad and proud. His face very commercial. Then what goes through his mind as he drinks his coffee infront of his pool.