MA - Drowned woman's body in public pool for days

[Nova]

lazy. Can people not do there jobs anymore.

I hate cloudy water pools. The inside pool at my area you can not see bottom, first its to dimmed in the pool area and second the color which is dark its to hard to see. I sometimes wonder when I am using a pool if its been properly sanitize. I have a pop up pool and that little thing takes a lot of work.

Sorry if I missed it, but what happen to the lady? Did she pass out or actually just drown. So very sad, and really scary that no one stopped to look.

If they know, I haven't seen it reported yet.

One detail buried in that last link explains a lot, I think: they closed the deep (cloudy) end of the pool 12 minutes after the victim disappeared under the water (as determined by a review of surveillance tapes). And then their pool contractor recommended that they leave the cloudy section closed until the pool filtration system fixed the problem.

That explains why nobody bumped into the victim and discovered the body by accident (until, of course, it rose to the surface).

 

[Kat]

I wonder was this a pool owned by a private buisness or was it a public pool?

Just wondering who this family could bring suit against? Doesn't have to be a monetary suit. Off topic, when I lived in Louisville there was a horrifying bus crash where a drunk driver drove up the wrong side of the highway and hit a school bus of kids and adults coming home from a day trip to an amusement park in OH. One family brought suit and it was to change the laws about school bus safety, a few other changes by manufactors and then brought suit against the DUI driver by making him pay them by mail one dollar on the anniversary of the day he killed their child for the rest of his life. They got it too.

 

[Kitty Kat]

I just wanted to throw in my two cents...I was a county lifeguard in South Florida for 4 years. As much as it pains me to say so, I can easily see how this could have occurred (talking about not being able to see through water...NO excuse for the guard having been told - they should have cleared the pool immediately and gone in for a bottom sweep)....especially with Red Cross certification. I say that because they aren't held to higher standards, like ELLIS (meaning, ELLIS lifeguards are audited - secretly videotaped at unknown times and random "emergencies", have to do weekly inservice, can't even cross legs, etc. I don't ever see this happening at an ELLIS-certified facility) In fact, it's pretty much gauranteed that if there's a heavy swim load, you won't be able to see the bottom

Now, on to why the water was so cloudy - and please do not take offense...many people with ethnic hair use heavy oils that really do cloud the water tremendously - and everyone should use sunscreen. Many don't shower off before entering.

I can remember many, many days when all the guards would join arms and do "foot sweeps" on the bottom, looking for bodies *sorry to be graphic*. The deepest section was 5 feet! I couldn't see the bottom looking directly above and neither could other guards. **I EXPECTED to be doing body sweeps on busy days....it was that common!**

There is absolutely NO excuse for this...none. If a guard can't see the bottom, it's their duty to check or to clear the pool until the water situation is resolved. Chlorine and chemicals can sometimes not keep up, even with incredibly advanced systems.

Now, not trying to bash the RC, but their standards are incredibly lax. And for my dear WSers, please check the certification of the facility....I don't take kids to RC pools, ever (no matter that I'm right there...I've watched a child go under while the mother was two feet away, just not looking! By the time I got to the child, the mother turned around and chastised me. I kicked them out!)

JMO.


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I don't think I would go as far as saying stay away from red cross certified pools, but to each their own. I was a lifeguard and District Manager for 6 years and we certified through Red Cross. Our Pool company does over 80 pools throughout the Chicago area and Red Cross might not require in-services or audits but our pool company did both. I could also guarantee that no manager within our company would allow a cloudy pool to remain open. If you can't see the pool drain at the bottom you close the pool, no hesitation.

 

[Kat]

Sort of off topic but just wanted to let everyone know that in this months' reader's digest is a really good article about drowning. I learned many things and signs I did not know. (thanks Nova for letting me know it is still published!)

 

[Nova]

Sort of off topic but just wanted to let everyone know that in this months' reader's digest is a really good article about drowning. I learned many things and signs I did not know. (thanks Nova for letting me know it is still published!)

The Wiki link has the same info as RD, but not the attractive drawings.

For those who wonder how the victim in the MA pool could just "go under and not come back up," this paragraph might be enlightening:

Shallow water blackout - caused by hyperventilation prior to swimming or diving. The primary urge to breathe (more precisely: to exhale) is triggered by rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the bloodstream. The body detects CO2 levels very accurately and relies on this to control breathing. Hyperventilation artificially depletes this, but leaves the diver susceptible to sudden loss of consciousness without warning from hypoxia. There is no bodily sensation that warns a diver of an impending blackout, and victims (often capable swimmers swimming under the surface in shallow water) become unconscious and drown quietly without alerting anyone to the fact that there is a problem; they are typically found on the bottom.

If the victim was not a comfortable swimmer and was already hyperventilating, then a shallow water blackout is a definite possibility.

 

[Misfitdolly]

This pool is a 15 minute drive from my house, though I have never been to it as we have our own pool. From what I read and saw on local news she was supervising the kids going down the slide, watching when one was out of the way before telling the next they could go. She accidentally slid down the slide with her 9 year old neighbor friend. He felt her hit him and saw her go under and told the lifeguard she didn't come back up, as you all know, but nothing was done. The picture up thread of her in a pool holding a child was actually taken minutes before she drowned in this very pool. You can see how cloudy the water is.

As for what could cause the cloudiness despite normal tests, if my kids have friends over and they all have sunscreen on our pool starts getting a little cloudy. Hair products could also contribute to it and this is a public pool in an area of the city with a pretty high minority population (think grease or straightener to tame down an afro for people of color).

This is a good article and it has a picture of the pool the day after the woman drowned and before she was found.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/inquiry_fall_river_pool_where.html

"Investigators said a review of surveillance video showed Joseph going down a water slide into the pool's deep end, surfacing briefly and bumping into a child before going under. The entire sequence lasted only six seconds."

 

[Nova]

Thanks for the update, Misfitdolly. If the victim went down the slide accidentally, maybe she hit her head and blacked out. Some fatal accidents are no more complicated than that.

 

[Donjeta]

I didn't understand how a pool can be so cloudy that you don't see a dark skinned woman at the bottom but look at this photo taken the day she died. You can't see her thighs and the children in the background just disappear below the water level and this is the shallow end, apparently. So add a few feet and put a woman in the bottom and you won't see a thing. In such conditions it is incomprehensible to me how the lifeguards just ignored the boy telling them someone went below and didn't come back again.

 

[mymeow]

And I was grossed out (rightfully so) about my son's swimming lessons being cancelled Tues because someone pooped in the pool! This adds a whole new dimension but I would NEVER let him in cloudy water. Something's amiss here!

 

[k4kathy]

That is really scary. It seems fishy to me. Who leaves the pool without all the people they came with?

What public swimming pool allows the water to stay murkey??? Ohh my gosh! PH level was normal... my foot!

 

[k4kathy]

Sort of off topic but just wanted to let everyone know that in this months' reader's digest is a really good article about drowning. I learned many things and signs I did not know. (thanks Nova for letting me know it is still published!)

Kat, I was just getting ready to post this very same information. I thought the article was really good also.I learned a lot.