Pool Mystery Explained

Remember the story from a few days ago about a woman drowning in a pool in Fall River Massachusetts? But the body wasn’t found for two days. And the pool was open. It would seem this mystery has an explanation:

An initial investigation showed the water in the pool was murky from the time the pool opened for the season last Saturday. Visibility tests conducted Wednesday revealed a diver couldn’t be seen at a depth of 3 1/2 to 4 feet below the surface of the water.

Unfortunately I was eating when I read that.

“He did tell two lifeguards – one said she was on break, and had to leave and the other told him they were going to do a pool check,” the woman told the newspaper. “But he told me they never did.”

So it would seem the Commonwealth of Massachusetts can’t even run a public swimming pool, yet folks want us to believe they are competent enough to control all our health care?

6 thoughts on “Pool Mystery Explained”

  1. Definitely calls into question the quality of the pool maintenance, and more importantly, the quality of the ‘lifeguards’…

  2. That’s bloody disgusting. The local pool here is always crystal clear, no matter the time or how busy.

  3. Alright, next question would be how the ___ did they decide they had a ‘go’ to open for the season if you can’t see 4 feet in front of your face underwater? I can’t remember ever swimming in a pool where I couldn’t clearly see one side from all the way on the other (as in 25 yards with barely noticeable haze)

  4. Re: the cloudy water.

    They likely shocked the pool with CaCl which when placed in the pool instead of in the skimmer causes the pool to get very cloudy. The Calcium is the culprit and the filter removes it eventually.

    The real failure was on the lifeguards. They should have cleared the pool and went through the water column checking for the victim. Major lifeguard fail here despite the press hanging out the Health inspectors, etc, the real failure is in lifeguarding.

    The pool caretakers should also stop placing powdered shock in the pool directly too.

  5. I would think cloudy water for a public pool is a serious safety hazard, enough that the pool should probably be closed until it clears up.

    But I agree on the lifeguard fail here.

  6. in PA they’ll shut down a pool for having cloudy water. There’s a little black circle about 4-6 inches in diameter, and they toss it in the deepest part of the pool. If you can’t see it, the pool has to close.

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