'She Died in My Arms': A Mother's Mission for Safe Pool

(continued)

First, they make it easy for swimmers to have hair or fingers sucked into drains. Second, if the surface of a flat drain cover is covered completely by a swimmer or other object, the result is a debilitating suction effect that traps swimmers to the drain itself.

The vacuum effect is powerful enough to hold swimmers, especially children, to the bottom of the pool. In some cases the power of the vacuum reaches over five hundred pounds. In one particularly horrific instance, four adult men were unable to pull a young girl from the grasp of a deadly drain. Swimmers can die from drowning or evisceration in just seconds.The Graeme Baker Act requires that all public pools be outfitted with such domed drain covers or very large flat drains. According to Paul Pennington, the advantage of either type of drain is that it makes it much harder for a swimmer to create the dangerous vacuum effect. A domed drain cover is not only "the kind of drain cover that is required" by the new law, but says Pennington, "you should want to put it in."Click here to read the Consumer Product Safety Commission's guidelines for how public pool operators can make their pools compliant with the Baker Act.

Faulty pool drains have caused the reported deaths of over fifty swimmers since the 1980s, but experts suspect that there have been many more unreported entrapment deaths in that time.When the Graeme Baker standards come into effect in December, experts say it is unlikely that the majority of public pools throughout the country will have already upgraded their drains to meet federal requirements."You're playing with fire," said Nancy Baker when told of the ABC News findings. "Save a child's life. Would you really want this on your conscience?"

The new law does not cover private backyard pools but Baker says she expects pool service companies to take the lead and install the safety devices on backyard pools they also service.

John Calhoun, Kenya Chanél, Tully McLoughlin, and Davita Scarlett, interns at the Brian Ross investigative unit, contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

Download complete article - Pdf