Pool Safety

Floor Speech

POOL SAFETY

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here today to talk about another subject, and that is an accident that happened in Minnesota over the Fourth of July break. It brought home to me and many people in my State that there are many ways that Government must act to protect its citizens. Some of them are larger than life--the debate over the strategy in Iraq. Others are smaller and quieter, a little girl lying maimed in a hospital bed after an accident that a simple law could have prevented.

We are in the midst of the summer swimming season in our State and all over the country, a time when children of all ages take to the swimming pools--as they should. Today, I wish to speak about the terrible injury suffered by a young girl in my State only weeks ago. That is why I feel such a sense of urgency about moving the legislation that is currently pending in the Senate--it is going to be considered by the Commerce Committee this week--which would help prevent serious injury or death for other children in the future.

Abigail Taylor, known as Abby, is a 6-year-old girl from suburban Minnesota, a girl with big brown eyes and a dazzling smile who loved to swim. Last month Abby went swimming at a local pool. She was in the shallow wading pool when she sat over an open drain hole and had most of her intestines torn out by the drain's powerful suction.

Somehow this little 6-year-old girl managed to stand up and take a few steps before collapsing along the side of the wading pool. Now, nearly 3 weeks later, she remains hospitalized after undergoing several surgeries. She will survive, thanks to a miracle, her parents believe, but it is expected that she will need a feeding tube for the rest of her life. All of this, simply because she spent a sunny summer day at a pool.

What happened to this little 6-year-old girl is horrific. My own daughter's name is Abigail, and hearing about this incident brings chills to any parent. When I first saw this story about this in our local newspaper, I had to stop reading because the details of it were so disturbing. They would be for any parent.

I look at this first as a mother. Your daughter is enjoying a beautiful summer day having fun playing at the local pool. It is not even a deep pool. It is just a kiddy pool. But suddenly something terrible happens, and your life is changed forever.

When it was first reported, like everyone else, I thought this was some kind of freak, one-of-a-kind incident. I never thought I would be spending time talking about it on the Senate floor. But then I learned that, unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened. As it turns out, although most pools are safe and well maintained, this type of incident has happened too many times before, resulting in the deaths of several dozen children over the past 15 years.

It even has a name: pool entrapment. It occurs when a child becomes stuck on a drain and is unable to escape due to the high velocity and pressure of the water being sucked into the drain.

Another scenario occurs when hair or jewelry gets sucked into the drain, making it difficult for a child to pull free. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the pressure on some pool drains can be as strong as 300 pounds per inch. In fact, several years ago, the Commission produced an educational video on this danger.

It showed a muscular man trying to pull an inflatable ball off a swimming pool drain. Using both arms and all of his might, he couldn't do it; the suction force was just too powerful.

Two years ago the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a report saying it was aware of at least 27 deaths and many more emergency room visits and hospitalizations due to this entrapment. Most of these victims were children. It is unclear how many actual entrapment incidents have not resulted in death but severe injury because entrapment is a little-known risk. It is possible that many swimming pool drowning deaths or other injuries have not been classified as caused by entrapment.

I think it is curious that I know of three of these incidents: the one in Minnesota, the one I am about to talk about involving Jim Baker's granddaughter, and another one in which former Senator Edwards represented a family with the tragic incident involving a pool drain.

You know, it never even crosses a parent's mind that at the bottom of the kiddy pool is something that has enough force and will cause death or severe injury as it did to Abby Taylor. But it should never have happened, and we must do everything we can to make sure it never happens again to any child because it is preventable.

There are several simple ways, as we will discuss in the Commerce Committee hearing this week, for manufacturers to reduce entrapment risk at pools: installing antientanglement and antientrapment drain covers; installing multiple drains, reducing suction force for each drain; installing a gravity flow or a safety vacuum release system, that prevents entrapment by automatically shutting off the pool pump.

These antientrapment measures are simple and inexpensive, and they can literally save children's lives. I saw a drain today that costs 50 bucks. That, plus adequate monthly inspection, can save lives.

There are also reasonable measures that Congress can take to help strengthen pool safety standards and prevent this kind of terrible incident from ever happening again to another child. The Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over product safety. It is led by two of my colleagues, Senators INOUYE and STEVENS, who have been leaders on this issue. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of the legislation introduced last week by Senators PRYOR, STEVENS, DODD, and myself, which would strengthen the safety standards for America's swimming pools and spas so we can prevent the kind of incident that happened to 6-year-old Abby Taylor.

As chairman of the Consumer Subcommittee, Senator Pryor has pushed to have this legislation included on the agenda for this week's committee markup. This legislation is called the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Safety Act, named in memory of the 7-year-old granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker.

It was an honor to meet this morning with Graeme's mother. She was here in her daughter's memory talking to Members of Congress. Several years ago, Graeme died as a result of suction entrapment in a spa. Her body was held underwater by the force of the suction, and it took two adults to help pry her free from the drain. But it was too late. She had already drowned.

This tragedy occurred at a graduation party that was well supervised by scores of adults. The purpose of this legislation is to reduce the likelihood that any other child will end up like Graeme Baker or Abby Taylor.

This same bill was introduced last year. The Senate passed it by unanimous consent. But in the closing days of the last Congress, it failed to pass the House of Representatives by a narrow margin. Now, what do you say when you talk, as I did, to the father of this little girl, Abby Taylor, who is lying maimed in a hospital bed losing her intestines? You

tell them that: Well, we got it through the Senate, but the House just did not have the votes to do it.

These parents are so courageous that they have moved on from that. They want her severe injuries to be discussed today. They are not afraid to have us talking about what happened to their little daughter because they want it never to happen to another child.

This year this legislation must pass. The legislation has several important provisions. It would take Consumer Product Safety Commission standards for pool drains, which are now voluntary, and make them mandatory.

It would prohibit the manufacture, sale, or distribution of drain covers that do not meet the standards established by the Commission. It is important to strengthen the legislation to make sure that not only new pools but all public pools meet the same standard.

The legislation also provides incentives for States to adopt their own
comprehensive pool safety laws regarding certain water safety devices, that they be installed to protect children. It also would contain grants to create these incentives.

There is a saying that when an accident happens that could reasonably have been prevented, then it is not accurate to call it an accident; it is actually a failure.

In the case of injuries and deaths caused by pool entrapment, it is not a failure by children or by their parents, it is a failure of our product safety laws. This means it is also a failure that it is within our power to correct, a problem that can be fixed through reasonable measures contained in this legislation.

We deal with issues larger than life, as we will today as we debate the war in Iraq. But sometimes a simple, small change in a law will save the life of a small child. Let's never forget what happened to innocent children such as Abby Taylor and Graeme Baker. For the health and safety of all of our children, I urge the Senate to take quick action to approve this legislation.

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