Suit faults Carrollton in accident

City denies responsibility in child’s near-drowning

By: Brooks Egerton – Staff Writer of the Dallas Morning News - Thursday February 6, 1997

A city of Carrolton inspector failed to detect a faulty swimming pool drain that later trapped and nearly drowned a 10-year-old boy, a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges. City Attorney Karen Brophy vowed to “vigorously defend” Carrollton against the suit involving the pool at Sandy Lake Amusement Park. It is one of a growing number of claims filed nationwide on behalf of people who have been maimed or killed by the powerful suction of spa and pool drains. Ms. Brophy said the city checks pools for chlorine levels and cleanliness but doesn’t inspect drains. An inspection form, however, suggests that inspectors check “scum gutters, skimmers, drains” and “circulation, inlets, outlets.” “We don’t put on the scuba gear and go down to look,” Ms. Brophy said.

The case stems from an accident last spring at Sandy Lake, which has one of the Dallas area’s largest pools open to the public. Because the park is privately operated, Carrollton can’t be responsible for what happens there, Ms. Brophy said. Representatives of Sandy Lake and the maintenance company it hired, Pool Kare, did not return phone calls Wednesday. Plantiffs’ lawyer Tom Shaw said he named the city as lone defendant because it’s ultimately responsible for whether pools get a permit to operate. “If you and I go to a pool inspected by the city, we think it’s safe,” he said. “It appears to me that the city of Carrollton uses inspections as a façade” to collect permit fees. “You’ve got to have lifeguards who’ll go into the pool and check these things.”

Sandy Lake passed inspection the day before the accident, according to city documents Mr. Shaw obtained through open-records demands. The inspector, a college student on summer break, specifically indicated that the pool’s drains and inlets had passed, the records show. Uncorrected safety violations are “grounds for suspension of permit and may result in a fine not to exceed $2,000 per violation,” the inspection form states. The former inspector, Scott Giffen, declined to comment when reached Wednesday night at college in Illinois. Mr. Shaw’s client, Coppell resident Sean Chittenden, was playing along a wall in the pool’s deep end May 29 when his right arm was sucked into an uncovered intake pipe. After he spent an undetermined period of time underwater, rescuers broke the unconscious boy’s arm and freed him. They revived him at pool side with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, city records show. Sean, now 11, still suffers from arm pain and emotional trauma, his mother says.

“He’s real different than he was before the accident,” said Carolyn Chittenden. “He gets mad easily” and isn’t doing as well in school. “I grew up going to Sandy Lake, and I never would have dreamed that something like that could happen,” she said. Carrollton adopted pool-safety ordinances in 1993, two years after another near-drowning in the city. In that case, an 8-yaer-old boy was pinned to the uncovered drain of an apartment complex spa for several minutes and suffered permanent brain damage. Rodney Massey, now 14, won more than $500,000 in an out-of-court settlement with the complex, its management company and the manufacturer of the drain cover. Several dozen such accidents have been recorded nationwide in the last 20 years, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Those records are incomplete because accident reporting isn’t mandatory, safety experts say. The federal commission is developing new standards aimed at preventing future tragedies, which occur when a body part or hair seals the drain opening.

A document from the safety panel’s staff says that maintenance professionals often find “missing covers, covers in place but not secured by screws, or covers with corrosion susceptible screws.” The Chittenden suit, filed in state District Court in Dallas County, seeks compensation for Sean’s medical expenses and mental anguish. No damage amount is specified. “We are not suing for millions,” Mr. Shaw said. The city pool inspector wrote the Chittenden family a few days after the accident, saying in part: “Steps have been made to further secure the safety of Sandy Lake Park pool. We are deeply sorry this incident occurred, and hope that we will do all we can to prevent this from happening again.” The attorney questioned whether Mr. Giffen could possibly have done a thorough job, given its size. On a “recognition form” written at the end of the 1996 swimming season, his supervisor praised him for increasing inspections “by 40 percent over last year (363 vs. 259), with an 80 percent increase in follow-up inspections.” The form said the young man “provided a professional and courteous service to our citizens, consistent with our goals or protecting the public health and safety.”

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