Pool Accidents – Aronberg & Aronberg

We hope everyone had a relaxing Memorial Day Weekend. While summer won’t officially begin until June 20^th, Memorial Day is often seen as the unofficial start of summer, with many people taking Memorial Day weekend to open up their pools for a summer filled with family, friends and lots of fun.

There is no doubt that a pool can be a wonderful keystone of a community.  From the exotic lands of Africa to the suburbs of South Florida, watering holes are a place where people (and animals!) come to gather and relax.  With all of a pool’s benefits, the dangers associated with aquatic enjoyment are often overlooked.  In this blog wed like to take a look at some of the risks involved with pools so that you can protect yourself and your family while making the summer of 2012 the best it can be.

Swimming pool accidents aren’t as rare as they might seem.  According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), roughly 3,500 people die each year due to drowning in pools.  These deaths are primarily the result of people falling into the pool, driving or jumping the wrong way, or getting trapped in a pool drain because of an improper design.   The costs of these accidents are much higher than most people might think.  About 20% of the children who experience near-drowning accidents in pools suffer brain injures that are often permanent.  A swimming pool accident can require treatment that might cost anywhere from $75,000 to $4,000,000, per person, depending on the incident.

People get injured in pools the same way they get injured in cars and the same way they get injured in grocery stores – because of negligence.  In a perfect world, all pools would be 100% safe, all cars would drive at the proper speed with the proper acknowledgement of other cars, and all grocery stores would have dry floors that nobody could slip on.  The fact is, this isn’t a perfect world, and just as with everything else in life, there is negligence associated with pools.  The owner is often negligent by not maintaining a certain standard of up-keep, and the manufacturer might be negligent by not installing or manufacturing a drain properly.  All of these mishaps make the owner—or company—liable for damages should somebody get hurt in their swimming pool.

There are a multitude of common issues that lead to pool accidents.  Among these are a lack of a substantial pool fence, a lack of pool cover, keeping a ladder next to a pool even when it’s not being used, not maintaining a working drain, etc.  When Casey Anthony argued that her daughter drowned in the family pool by climbing up the ladder that shouldn’t have been there, she was not making up a ridiculous scenario.  Things like that happen all of the time, and the owner of the pool is often held responsible for the subsequent damages.  As might be expected, the majority of pool accidents involve youngsters that aren’t qualified to swim or aren’t strong enough to save themselves.

Please be safe around pools—whether you own one or just use one.  Negligence on either end can have deadly—and costly—consequences.

If you or anyone you know has been injured in a pool accident, contact the Law Offices of Aronberg & Aronberg at 561-266-9191 or daronberg@build.simple.biz.

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