Posted on 06/18/2004 5:17:05 AM PDT by Max Combined
Does anyone else think that it is suspicious that the hotel (Radisson Plaza Hotel) pool was closed while the 15,000 people attended the National Baptist Sunday School and Baptist Training Union Congress?
Maybe the hotel did not want a bunch of kids with wet bathing suits in the elevators and running around the halls or were worried about someone drowning in their pool with no life guard, so they arranged to do maintenance during the time this convention was going on.
I saw pics of that fountain....it looks like a disaster waiting to happen.
But no one drowned there for thirty years. There are not many swimming pools, water parks, beaches, or swimming holes that can go that long without a drowning. It seems like someone drowns off the beach in Galveston almost every weekend during the summer.
A big grate about a foot under the surface of the water would have let the water flow through to the drain and yet kept people from being sucked down so far.
You left out a word. "a bunch of Black kids"
This story has all of the unspoken PC elements - a potential race card vs. charges of homophobia.
Yep...sounds like that woulda been a good plan.
This pool is a accident waiting to happen! By the time the lawyers get finished...the city will be out at least $10 million on damages to the family and probably have to tear the entire garden down. I would suggest a urban housing project in its place...lots of friendly folks instead of a terrible water fountain.
I assume your being sarcastic. Have you seen the fountain, looked like a lot of slick steps all leading to the 'pool' at the bottom. The pool that just sucked 4 people to their deaths. It was a lawyers dream.
No. It was closed for six hours to rechlorinate it.
Translation: there had been such heavy usage of the pool, it had to be treated.
Texas law limits negligence lawsuits to $250,000 per occurrence. It appears that Fort Worth will have to pay every bit of that $1 million.
The people admitted they were there to swim in a city fountain.
That fountain is one of my favorite spots in Fort Worth. It's a fountain not a swimming pool. The thing is so old that it was in one of Farrah Fawcett first movies.
Put a sceen just under the surface like one poster said, open the thing back up and tell the knuckleheads to stay the heck out of the water.
I saw a picture of the pool empty, with ladders going to the bottom and a couple of guys walking around in the drained pool. It looked like the total depth might have been 8 or 9 feet, but the water line looked to be more like 7 feet or about a foot above the heads of the guys standing in the empty pool.
There seem to have been quite a few people who jumped in and tried to save the victims and none of them drowned, even though they were not able to bring any of the victims to the surface.
I'm not saying to close it down. I'm just amazed that a safety
grill hadn't been one of the first things done with that fountain. Looks like they took a chance and now will lose a whole lot of money, not to mention that 4 people died because of an oversite.
The city should have planned on stray children IMO.
Well, the first cops on the scene said they were sucked right to the bottom, and had to struggle to get out. Nobody could do anything until the fire department broke into the pump room and shut off the pumps.
Your recommendation for a grate is exactly the solution offered by the city engineer in the Star Telegram this morning.
Others are talking about putting up a fence, but they just as well close the park if they do that.
>>I saw pics of that fountain....it looks like a disaster waiting to happen.<<
Thirty years is a LONG wait...
>>I'm not saying to close it down. I'm just amazed that a safety
grill hadn't been one of the first things done with that fountain. Looks like they took a chance and now will lose a whole lot of money, not to mention that 4 people died because of an oversite.
The city should have planned on stray children IMO.<<
With all due respect, a perfect injury record for THIRTY YEARS suggests it was not an "oversite." This seems more like a "fluke" than anything else - A "perfect storm" in a teapot.
Yep. If there had only been three feet of water in the pool, nobody would have drowned.
That fluke just cost 4 people their lives. One tiny thought of safety would have had the city install the grill years ago.Instead they became careless because no one had drowned yet. Not a good way for a city to be run. But, hey I'm sure after they pay out for this little accident they'll look to other potentially dangerous structures in their city and perhaps take some steps in safety...
But then again they appear to like to see how long they can go before someone gets hurt so who knows.
Not impressed. One accident every 30 years is acceptable to me.
Personal responsibility reigns where I am from. That is especially true after seeing the photo in the post before mine.
A thirty year track record is enough proof for me that it was "reasonably safe" and, more importantly, safe enough.
We cannot reach perfection, so some "acceptable risk" level must be reached. I believe the track record proves that this one was and is "acceptable. I'll tell you one thing, if they get it going again, people won't be going in any more...
Children like water...children fall down which is exactly what happened here. A grate would have been an acceptable safety measure, one the city choose not to take.
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