Not an urban legend

[genlock]

(WCCO) Minneapolis A 6-year-old Edina, Minn. girl has been hospitalized after a horrific accident at a swimming pool.

Abigail Taylor was severely injured Friday when she sat over an open drain hole in a wading pool at the Minneapolis Golf Club.

Now Abigail's father has a warning to other families: Pool and hot tub drain accidents are a hidden danger that many of us don't understand.

Abigail has big brown eyes, a dazzling smile and at just 6 years old she has already competed in local swim meets.

"She loves to swim," said her father Scott Taylor.

Her love of swimming is why her family didn't think twice when she played at a kiddie pool at the family's golf club on Friday night.

Taylor said as Abigail was getting out of the pool, she fell.

"She more or less blacked out, she passed out, fell face-first onto the pool decking," he said. The family thought it was a seizure.

An ambulance rushed her to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. Several hours later a surgeon said Abigail was lucky to be alive.

"The suction had caused a two-inch tear in her rectum and had basically disemboweled her by pulling out her small intestines, almost all of it," said Taylor.

Her father said a search of the pool filter turned up Abigail's intestine. He said Abigail was seriously wounded because the cover of the drain had been removed.

[CoolBreeze]

I seem to recall the same thing happened last year or maybe the year before.

Here's some more info on drain dangers:


Suction and Entrapment Hazards - an Underrated Risk

On Thursday, September 28, 2000 an 18 year old lifeguard was found dead in a splash pool at the Hawaiian Water Adventure Park. He had been sucked into an intake pipe during maintenance. This was not an isolated incident.

In March 1994, a lifeguard was killed at the Saanich Commonwealth Place in Saanich, BC. While working to repair a grate in the wave pool,
she became trapped underwater by the suction from the ten inch intake pipe for the pool’s waterslide. A young girl died at a pool in Toronto after her hair became entangled in a malfunctioning skimmer equalizer fitting.

In New Jersey, a 16 year old girl died after being trapped on the drain grate of a whirlpool. Other deaths and serious injuries have resulted as a
result of suction incidents at public and private aquatic facilities.

All aquatic facilities have a variety of fittings or fixtures which are potential suction or entrapment hazards. These hazards are often not included in any regular inspection or risk assessment process. The Lifesaving Society recommends that every facility implement a process to identify all suction and entrapment hazards. After identification, steps should be taken to
eliminate or reduce the hazard and implement a schedule of regular inspections.

The highest risk pools for a suction incident are shallow pools such as wading pools or whirlpools where the drain can be blocked by someone sitting on the drain or long hair can become trapped in the drain. Pools with 2 separate bottom drains should not be able to cause the
suction problem. If one drain is blocked by a body, the other drain prevents the development of dangerous suction forces.

[SPIKE NESMITH!]

Dear news writers,

Please just give me the facts of a story and not a bunch of emotional adjectives. I don't care what colour her eyes were, what her favourite boyband was or whether or not she liked My Little Pony. Tell me what's important and nothing more.

Sincerely,

Spike Nesmith
green eyes, dark hair. Loves walks on the beach, Prokofiev and hardcore pornography.