Our personal injury lawyers at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm advise parents to take necessary safety precautions to protect their children from deadly pool drownings. Pools can be a dangerous place, particularly when children are not properly supervised or pool owners fail to equip the pool with adequate safety equipment.
In Florida, 14-month-old twin toddlers were only out of their parents’ sight for about 10 minutes before they fell in a swimming pool and nearly drowned. The latest reportsindicate that the boys are in serious condition in the ICU of All Children’s Hospital.
Police say that the children’s grandmother stepped outside for a cigarette and failed to completely close a sliding glass door. The toddlers slipped through the door and went straight for the backyard swimming pool.
The toddlers’ parents quickly realized they were missing and started to search for them. They soon discovered that the sliding glass door was partly open, and found that both toddlers were floating face down in the pool.
Often when small children fall into the water, they do not struggle or splash. So caretakers may not even notice when a child falls into a pool. In this case, some of the family members were deaf, which made the drownings even more difficult to detect.
Apart from birth defects, drowning is actually the leading cause of death in children ages 1-4. In the case of a pool drowning, injuries happen fast. Approximately four minutes minutes after a child goes underwater, permanent brain damage can occur.
Another recent pool drowning incident earlier this year, two young children died after falling into a neighbor’s pool while their mother was sleeping.
The fatal pool drowning happened in New Jersey, where the 3-year-old and 5-year-old boy left their sleeping mother and climbed into the neighbor’s backyard. When the boys’ mother awoke, she could not find her sons, so she called police. Eventually, the boys were found at the bottom of the neighbor’s in-ground pool.
It appears that the pool may have been fenced in, but reports say that the boys climbed over the fence. Sadly, his is the fourth pool drowning incident this month involving children in New Jersey.
These pool drowning accidents show that parents need to be on high alert whenever their children are around swimming pools. Although swimming may be a fun activity, it can also be extremely dangerous. Even children who are unsupervised for a matter of minutes can fall into a pool and suffer fatal injuries.
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Depending on the circumstances, a pool drowning lawsuit can be filed against the negligent supervisor or swimming pool owner. A pool may also have defective parts, or lack required safety devices. Children are particularly at risk for fatal pool injuries.
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