A statewide I-Team 8 investigation finds the lives of children could be at risk in Indiana because some county health departments are unsure how to enforce a new federal law aimed at making pools safer.
The Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act requires new drain covers that are domed instead of flat on pool filtration systems. The new covers are designed to keep children from becoming caught in the drain's suction, like 6-year-old Abigail Taylor of Minnesota. She was disemboweled when she became trapped while sitting on a pool filter drain in a wading pool at a golf club.
- Read an official warning by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission regarding the drain covers
- Read an excerpt of the CPSC chief on the CBS Early Show warning of the hidden dangers of pool drains
Those caught in the drains bear the scars. Their welts are so deep they are permanent scars shaped like the drains.
Others have died, like 10-year-old Harmony Tobin of Alexandria, Indiana. Her father, Brent Tobin, spoke out for the first time to I-Team 8. He said by the time he got to the hospital, his daughter was already dead.
Ten years ago on Father's Day, Harmony was at the pool in Alexandria, playing with friends. She never came home. The little girl who had won ribbons for her swimming skills drowned after her head was sucked into the pool filter pipe.
The suction force was so great, lifeguards and firefighters could not pull her off of it.
Harmony’s father said the door to the equipment room was locked and lifeguards couldn't turn off the pump.
More than six months after the Virginia Graeme Baker Act took effect, I-Team 8 found there are pools throughout the state that aren't compliant. In fact, the Marion County Health Department reports 40 percent of the more than 922 licensed pools in Marion County are not compliant.
The Marion County Health Department said that while the new federal law is good, it has no teeth because Indiana doesn't have a state regulation to back it up. But other states do.
Pam Thevenow, of the health department, said, "Because we don’t have the exact enforcement authority to require them to close if they are not in compliance, what we are doing now is monitoring their compliance status."
In Hamilton County, the health department sent out letters last summer to all of the 244 pools in the county. But the department told I-Team 8 it does not keep a record of which pools are in compliance.
Pool inspection reports show that in Hendricks County, nearly 95 percent of its county’s pools are in compliance. But the report also shows one notable exception: Avon High School.
Rushville's community pool opened late this summer with the promise that it would make the needed repairs.
In Madison County, I-Team 8 found that pool inspection reports show the pool complex where Harmony Tobin died 10 years ago opened this year with only one of three pools in compliance with the new federal law.
I-Team 8 found similar situations throughout the state. In Brazil, near Terre Haute, the health department allowed one pool to open with old drain covers. In Fort Wayne, one city pool remains closed in part because it didn't comply. In Lafayette, a pool delayed opening until it could get new drains.
Carl Terry of Terry Pools has been building pools for more than 40 years.
He said there is no excuse for a city pool to open without the new drain cover.
"Either get them in compliance or shut them down," Terry said.
Terry said the switching the grate is a simple job that takes 10 minutes and costs about $80.
For some pools, the fix is more expensive. The new law says pools with one drain now need two drains with an automatic shut off if one of them becomes blocked.
I-Team 8 questioned whether lifeguards at pools without automatic shutoffs are trained in how to shut off a drain in an emergency. When I-Team 8 asked one area lifeguard about the drain shut off, he told us he didn't know where the shut off valve was and, in fact, he had never even heard children could get stuck to the pool drains.
At the same pool, a supervisor had emergency procedures but admitted the lifeguards do not. We asked him to show us the shut off valve. He walked us to a locked room but then took us to another shut off valve closer to the pool.
When questioned again, the pool supervisor admitted none of the lifeguards have been shown how to shut off the pump.
When it comes to summer fun in the pool, Harmony’s dad has a warning for all parents.
"All parents should be checking the pool because perhaps, nobody else has," he said.
The deadline for complying with the new law is December of 2008. Indy Parks said they've replaced one drain cover, but plan to replace all of them by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the first lawsuit to test the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act was filed in Pennsylvania after a man died in Pittsburgh this spring after being stuck to the drain in a pool.
His attorneys contend the hotel pool in Pittsburgh is
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