Chicago Pool Injury Lawyer - Article

Pool Drain: Body Entrapment

Pools are a source of endless hours of entertainment and exercise. Unfortunately, they also come with a variety of dangers attached to them. One of these dangers is body entrapment.

Body entrapment is a serious situation where an individual’s limb or body gets trapped against a pool drain. This results in drowning or even death. Between January of 1990 and August of 2004, there were 74 cases of this situation. Unfortunately, 13 of those instances resulted in a death.

The deaths related to body entrapment are a result of drowning after the body or a limb gets caught against the drain by the suction of the circulation pump. This problem can occur in any pool, residential or public.

More than half of the 74 incidents of body entrapment occurred in spas, hot tubs, or whirl pools. Thirty-one of the cases happened in normal swimming pools while 3 occurred in wading pools. The incidents did not affect one age group alone. The victims ranged in ages from 22 months to 89 years. The majority of the victims were between the ages of 8 and 16 years.

In some of the accidents, the child was playing with an open drain by inserting a hand or foot into the drain. Unfortunately, the limb got caught by the suction. The pool’s pump did not have a pump that stopped sucking if the amount of water reaching the pump was reduced. This led to the limb swelling which made it nearly impossible for the child to escape. This sort of injury becomes a possibility when there’s a drain that can be covered completely by a person.

Contact a Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer

If you have been injured in a swimming pool in some way, contact the Chicago pool injury lawyers of Friedman & Bonebrake at 312-466-8200 to discuss your case and to determine your legal options.