MINNEAPOLIS - A 6-year-old girl who sat on an open drain in a wading pool lost part of her intestinal tract to the drain’s powerful suction, her family said.
Abigail Taylor was injured in the wading pool on June 29, according to her family.
Her father, Scott Taylor, said the suction caused a 2-inch tear in Abigail’s rectum and pulled out much of her small intestine. Doctors had to remove the part of her intestines that remained, according to the family’s lawyer, Bob Bennett.
Abigail remained in intensive care at Children’s Hospital on Thursday and appeared to be improving, Bennett said.
She was to undergo surgery on Friday, Bennett said. “She’ll receive her nutrition through a port for the rest of her life,” he said.
Bennett said the swimming pool’s drain hole was improperly uncovered. However, the general manager of the club where the pool is located said he didn’t think anything was wrong with the pool. He referred questions to the attorney for the club’s insurance company, who declined to comment.
Several states have passed pool-safety laws after children drowned or were disemboweled by drain suction. North Carolina, for instance, requires pools to have dual drains to diffuse the force of the suction and prevent children from being trapped.
Did you know...
Certain groups of children are at higher risk for drowning.
Children ages 4 and under have a drowning death rate more than three times greater than other age groups and account for 80 percent of home drownings.
Male children have a drowning rate more than two times that of female children. However, females have a bathtub drowning rate twice that of males.
Low-income children are at greater risk from non-swimming pool drownings.
Drowning fatality rates are higher in southern and western states than in other regions of the United States.
Rural areas have higher drowning death rates than urban or suburban areas, in part due to decreased access to emergency medical care.
More than half of drownings among infants (under age 1) occur in bathtubs.
More than 10 percent of all childhood drownings occur in bathtubs; the majority of these occur in the absence of adult supervision.
Female children have a bathtub drowning rate twice that of males.
Since 1983, there have been at least 104 deaths and 162 nonfatal incidents involving baby bath seats.
Children can drown in as little as one inch of water and are therefore also at risk of drowning in wading pools, bathtubs, buckets, diaper pails, toilets, spas and hot tubs. Since 1984, more than 327 children, 89 percent between the ages of 7 months and 15 months, have drowned in buckets containing water or other liquids used for mopping floors and other household chores. It is estimated that 30 children drown annually in buckets.
More than half of drownings among children ages 1 to 4 are pool-related.
Among children ages 4 and under, there are approximately 300 residential swimming pool drowningseach year. More than half of these drownings occur in the child's home pool, and one-third occur at the homes of friends, neighbors or relatives.
Most children who drown in swimming pools were last seen in the home, had been missing from sight for less than five minutes and were in the care of one or both parents at the time of the drowning.
Since 1980, more than 230 children ages 4 and under have drowned in spas and hot tubs.
African-American males ages 5 to 9 have a swimming pool-related drowning rate four and a half times that of their white counterparts. African-American males ages 10 to 14 have a swimming pool-related drowning rate 15 times that of their white counterparts.
Installation of four-sided isolation fencing could prevent 50 to 90 percent of childhood residential swimming pool drownings and near-drownings.
Children ages 5 to 14 most often drown at open-water sites (rivers, lakes and oceans).
In 2003, 21 children ages 14 and under drowned in reported recreational boating accidents. In 2003, 62 percent of children ages 14 and under who drowned in reported recreational boating accidents were not wearing PFDs or life jackets. It is estimated that 85 percent of boating-related drownings could have been prevented if the victim had been wearing a personal flotation device.
In 2003, 200 children ages 14 and under sustained injuries in reported recreational boating accidents involving personal watercraft.
Approximately half of all boating deaths occur on Saturdays and Sundays and between the months of May and August.
For more information about pool safety, check out the following:
CPSC Issues Warning for Pools, Spas, and Hot Tubs
Avoiding entrapment: layers of protection not only guard against drowning, but also reduce pool drain hazards
Phoenix Fire Department: Water Safety and Drowning Prevention
Facts About Childhood Drowning
Water Watchers
Drowning Support Network
