Swimming Pool Safety News

In 2010 twelve year old Terrell Travis Jr. was dying of cancer.  According to the Journal Sentinel Travis was offered a chance to visit Disney World through the Michigan-based organization American Dream Flite.  Our swimming pool attorney was saddened to hear that the trip took a devastating departure from the intended purpose of helping a very ill child just be a twelve year old boy. 

On the evening of April 28, 2010 at the Radisson Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida, Travis was swimming with other children who were on the trip in the resort’s main pool.  One of the other children spotted Travis under the water and was able to pull him up from the bottom.  Medical professionals who were on the trip as chaperones began resuscitation efforts immediately, but sadly Travis died later at a local hospital.  After an investigation an Orlando medical examiner determined that he had died of complications from a drowning.

Prior to the trip Travis had undergone surgery that had left him feeling better than normal.  He knew how to swim and was supposed to be supervised constantly as parents are not allowed on the trips.  None of the chaperones witnessed Travis going under the water and there was no lifeguard on duty at the resort.  Travis’ mother, Angela Jefferson, has brought legal action against American Dream Flite and its insurer, alleging that the organization’s negligence in failing to exercise reasonable care in supervising Travis lead to her son’s death.  They are seeking unspecified damages.  In 2011 the organization closed due to apparently unrelated reasons.

Our hotel swimming pool accident lawyer knows that all swimming pools can be a dangerous place for any user.  Children are particularly prone to falling victim to these accidents, because they do not understand the risks.  Those that are charged with watching over young children in swimming pools must take their responsibility seriously.  Constantly monitoring children is vital for their protection and can mean the difference between life and death.

Pools can be even more dangerous if owners and operators of pools do not take the proper safety steps.  It is vital that these owners and operators take reasonable steps in pool safety and maintenance to prevent accidents.  Hotel guests have a reasonable expectation that certain safety steps will be in place when they use hotel swimming pools.  When a child dies in a swimming pool accident it often turns out that the pool operator did not meet the standards that the law requires.    

Our Texas hotel drowning lawyer has represented numerous families just like the one in Texas and throughout the country.  If you or a loved one was involved in a similar hotel pool drowning or near drowning accident contact our swimming pool accident attorney at the J. Guerra Law Firm to learn how we can help you.  Attorney Guerra can help determine your legal rights, and the possibility of redress for any harm suffered.  We work with victims throughout the nation to help ensure that pool owners and operators are held accountable for their conduct and take steps to prevent future tragedies.

See Related Blog Posts:

Young Girl Drowns in Florida Resort Pool

Daytona Beach Shores Hotel Pool Drowning Takes Life of Toddler

Drowning of Toddler Juan Cardenas Raises Questions About Supervision At Unlicensed Day Care

Our hotel drowning lawyer was shocked and saddened after learning of the death of a 2 year-old Orlando child in a Daytona Beach Shores hotel pool accident on October 28, 2011. The drowning occurred at approximately 12:15 p.m. at the Oceanside Inn Hotel on South Atlantic Avenue. The hotel surveillance video camera captured the events and showed the young boy was with family members at the swimming pool.  However, while swimming in the hotel pool the child began to struggle, and he eventually went under water.  It was over nine minutes before the drowning child was noticed. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach.

Hotel swimming pools, like the one in this story, pose great risk to the customers of the hotel. Among the hotel customers, children are the ones that typically lack the mental capacity to understand the risks posed and are too often the victims. It is important that the children and all users of hotel swimming pools be protected to the fullest extent required by law. All hotels that choose to provide swimming pools for their customers need to have in place a safety plan and safety mechanisms to ensure hotel pool drownings like the ones that occurred in this story are prevented.  Failure to do so is often a sign of negligence.   

This story is one of many across the nation that demonstrates the failure of supervision and the failure to implement other safeguards for the hotel swimming pool.  It is unfortunately too often that the owners of hotels do not prioritize the safety of its swimming pool users. Year after year some facilities continue to ignore the risks presented by their aquatic activities and fail to take proper steps that could have be implemented to prevent the hotel pool drowning and save the lives of their customers.  Hotel owners and operators have a legal duty to their customers to prevent tragic deaths when they choose to facilitate a swimming pool for their hotel. Once this duty is breached by their failure to provide simple and required safety mechanisms, the owners and operators must be held liable.  This liability will ensure that the owners will correct their poor safety precautions and prevent future tragedies.

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When a public pool fails to maintain safe swimming conditions it is usually only a matter of time before a pool accident occurs.   Our swimming pool attorney knows that many unsafe pools are often the site of several “near misses” caused by inadequate protective measures. If not corrected, eventually those dangerous pools cause a serious drowning.  Unfortunately, all too often pool operators do not respond appropriately to those close calls—allowing unsafe conditions to persist and placing swimmers at risk.  All swimming pool owners and operators must understand those risks posed by pools. It is particularly egregious if a public pool operator is on notice that their pool poses unique dangers and then does nothing to prevent future problems.   

Just such a failure to take any corrective measures after being put on notice of a dangerous pool may have caused a drowning this afternoon at a New Jersey pool.  New Jersey News reported has just reported on the death of a 9-year-old child in a drowning at the Seaside Heights motel.  According to police the young girl was staying at the motel with her parents.    It is unclear if they were near the pool when the drowning occurred.

Witnesses indicate that the child likely spent about two minutes under the water before she was noticed by other motel guests.  Those guests pulled her out of the water and arriving police officers performed CPR.  However, the girl had spent too much time under the surface, depriving her body of oxygen.  She died shortly after being brought to a nearby hospital.

Sadly, guests at the scene indicate that a second child was actually pulled from the water less than an hour before the 9-year old girl was found.  It remains unclear exactly what caused either swimmer to struggle.  However, the fact that two children had problems in the same pool in unrelated accidents mere minutes apart suggests that conditions at the pool might not have been up to par. 

The motel swimming pool accident occurred in a pool that was 8 feet deep—though the child was pulled from a part of the water was only 5 feet deep.  There was no lifeguard on duty.  An investigation into the pool is currently underway as experts check the water’s clarity level and other conditions to determine what led to the tragic drowning. 

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