4 Ways To Make Your Swimming Pool Safer
Michael Babboni
Premises Liability
Premises liability is when a property owner—whether residential or commercial—is legally and financially responsible for an injury that happens on their land. This occurs if that injury was preventable, but the property owner, seeing a risk, chose to ignore that risk, resulting in the injury.For homeowners, one of the most common forms of premises liability is the swimming pool. It adds a lot of value to a home but is also one of the top causes of child death in the country through drowning. Here’s how you can avoid exposing yourself to this legal issue.
Use Anti-Entrapment Drains
Drains are built to move away from a swimming pool, but they can also create suction that a child is small and weak enough not to resist. If a drain doesn’t have a proper cover, a child can even get swept up and caught in the drain, unable to rise to the surface, thus drowning. Anti-entrapment drains are built such that children can’t get caught in them.
Try to ensure your drains have this feature if there will be children present.
Build A Fence
Even if you don’t invite children to your property, if they can get easy access to your pool and get into an accident as a result, premises liability still applies. Swimming pools are classed as an “attractive nuisance,” meaning there’s an understanding that children will enter a property unlawfully because they are attracted to something on that property. Putting up a fence around the pool ensures that you have exercised reasonable caution in trying to prevent this.
Supervise All Activity
Children can—and have—drowned in only two inches of water. Don’t assume that just because a child is in a wading pool, everything is safe, and you can do something else in the house. Even something as innocent as children playing together in a pool can result in drowning if one child pushes the other into the water and mistakes drowning for playing.
Always supervise children. The most common, preventable drownings occur in a home because there was no adult present to intervene in an easily resolvable situation. Even if it was an accident, if a child drowns and you weren’t there to see it, this leaves you liable.
Know CPR
Finally, as a matter of general safety at the pool, the beach, or the ocean, it’s always a good idea to have training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation or CPR. This can literally mean the difference between life and death in a drowning situation.
It’s essential to take all the precautions you can in preventing an accident, especially one that you may face legal liability for. However, it’s just as important to be prepared and know how to act in the event an accident takes place. Being able to act decisively and prevent an injury from turning into death can make all the difference to a person’s future.
But if you’ve been the victim of a premises liability, or lost someone to such an act, get legal help. Talk to a slip and fall lawyer or other personal injury attorneys for help.