Minnesota would adopt stricter swimming pool safety standards that would require daily inspections and retrofitting public swimming and wading pools under a bill that cleared a Senate committee Wednesday.
The measure is a response to an incident last year in which an Edina girl suffered serious injuries from the suction of an uncovered drain at a country club wading pool. While the bill passed its first hearing on a voice vote Wednesday, some legislators expressed concern that the remedies could prove too expensive for cash-starved municipal pools, possibly forcing authorities to keep pools closed rather than adopt the new requirements.
Scott Taylor, whose daughter Abigail was severely injured when she sat over an open drain in a wading pool at the Minneapolis Golf Club, testified before the Senate Health, Housing and Family Security Committee.
Citing a dictionary definition of "accident," he said that what happened to Abigail "was not an accident. It was identifiable and foreseeable, especially to those in the pool industry." He said recent similar injuries all occurred in wading or kiddie pools.
Taylor said some drain covers have been redesigned to prevent these kinds of incidents, while others have not, and added that drain covers that do not address the hazards "have no place in any Minnesota pool or spa."
"Minnesota has a chance to be a leader in pools safety," he said. "Our children should be as safe in a pool as science and engineering can make them."
Abigail has undergone several surgeries and is hospitalized in Nebraska after having a multiple organ transplant in December.
The family is suing the pool manufacturer and the golf club in Hennepin County District Court. The suit alleges that Abigail, playing in the wading pool, fell and landed on the uncovered drainage outlet and became trapped on it when the sump created a vacuum. Her colon was forced into her rectum, and her exposed small intestine was pulled out through her lacerated rectum.
