Abigail Taylor, 6, was seriously injured in the wading pool of a St. Louis Park club after a drain sucked out several feet of her intestine.

A 6-year-old Edina girl remained hospitalized in serious condition Wednesday after an unusual accident in which several feet of her intestine were pulled out by the suction of a swimming pool drain.

Abigail Taylor was injured Friday in the wading pool at the Minneapolis Golf Club in St. Louis Park and taken to Children's Hospital for surgery.

"It's a horrible, life-altering injury," said Robert Bennett, the attorney for Abigail's parents, Scott and Kathryn Taylor.

Bennett said doctors had to perform surgery to remove the part of Abigail's intestine that remained following the accident. He said it is likely that she will have to be fed intravenously for the rest of her life.

Bennett said doctors now are concentrating on preventing infection and managing pain, and are also deciding what course to take on further potential medical procedures to treat the injury.

Bennett said Abigail does not yet know the full extent of her injuries. "She knows she's been hurt," he said. "She's a strong little girl. How she extricated herself from that drain I'll never know."

Although some details of the accident are still fuzzy, it is known that Abigail was able to free herself from the drain and get out of the pool on her own without calling for help. As a result, the extent of her injuries wasn't immediately evident to the people near her.

In a message posted on the Caring Bridge, a nonprofit Internet site that offers free Web pages to families of people recovering from illness or injuries, the Taylors said the protective cover on the pool's drain had come off.

If so, the scenario of the injury fits a pattern that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warned about in a 2005 report, "Guidelines for Entrapment Hazards: Making Pools and Spas Safer."

According to the report, if a child sits on an open drain, the suction, which can reach several hundred pounds per square inch, can rupture the rectum and eviscerate the child in a matter of seconds.

There have been three such incidents since 1990. The most recent was two years ago when a 3-year-old was disemboweled by a hot tub drain.

None of those accidents was fatal, although in the same time span 13 people, most of them children, drowned after being caught in underwater drains.

Abigail's injury comes as Congress is considering new pool-safety regulations. Instead of having one main drain, both public and private pools would be required to have multiple drains with reduced suction. Owners of existing pools would be able to install safety release sensors that will turn off the suction if it the system is blocked.

The Minneapolis Golf Club referred calls to its insurance company, which wasn't open Wednesday because of the holiday.

Bennett described the Taylors, who have three other daughters, "as brave and optimistic." He said they are focused on Abigail's immediate recovery, her long-term future care and steps that can be taken "to make sure this kind of thing never happens to anyone else again."

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1285137.html

how horrific! I can't even comprehend something like this happening, especially from a drain. Makes me sick to my stomach, that poor girl.

things to do before i die:
109: swim in a pool

ouch poor little thing any more info on her for donations etc...

That would be some weird kind of pain to feel.

this strengthens my belief in not swimming in pools poor girl

Thats unbelievable, I cant begin to imagine what was going through her mind at the time. Not forgetting the pain either.

Sorry can't help this even though i do feel for her.

Life Suck's

You could donate part of your intestine.

Unfortunately...children being injured or even killed in suction at swimming pools is not that uncommon. Two summers ago in Fort Worth Texas a church group was visiting the botanic gardens. There was a large pool of water with waterfalls. A young girl from the church group jumped in to just cool off and was immediately sucked down by the pumps...another person jumped in to save her and then her father and then another person...in all 4 people drowned. A policeman jumped in also and barely escaped the suction but lost his socks in the process!

That is so unreal. If there wasn't a source with this information I would take it as an urban legend. I hope her pain is minimal and she is given the highest of care .

Poor baby...how sad

Dude, we're talking about a kid who has no chance of a normal life now. What is so funny?

That is too horrible to even imagine....I have also read a few other stories of this happening...Not to long ago,it was the boy in the hot tub....I can only hope that all goes well for her...

how.. the.. *uck.. did that happen


that would ultimatly suck, i feel sorry for her and her family, she cant even get a real chance at a normal life now

that's horror.. cant imagine the pain!

That's just awful. I can't imagine how she escaped that unaided. Poor girl. The article says she will most likely have to fed via tube for the rest of her life. Perhaps there's a way to te get her a trasnsplant if a suitable doner is found. I know doctors have performed partial intestinal transplants before. I hope her family has good insurance.

That happened because the safety shield on the intake of the pump was either missing or malfunctioning. Centrifugal forces in these high powered pumps in commercial swimming applications can be huge. The larger the pool...the higher pump ratios and the higher centrifugal forces in the suction of the pump. Public swimming pools therefore should be used with caution.

a nightmare.

Jeez... That would have to be one hell of a force

This happens way too much. When the hell will pool-makers figure out that they have to either make the suction weak enough that they won't suck out organs, or make the grates bigger than anyone's body parts can cover to avoid suction. They could even install some sort of detection thing that detects when the suction is blocked by something (someone). Even my vacuum cleaner shuts itself off if the suction is blocked for too long. It's insane that in a world that bans the dumbest things for being "dangerous" that something as dangerous as this is allowed to be used in so many pools.

I remember hearing stories like this as a kid, however I don't really believe it. Any person who has ever dissected an animal would know that the intestines as part of the digestive tract are ...thereby connected to the mouth. So unless the innards were already severed inside and detatched from the membranes encasing them and such, the most that might happen would be one could have a bad hemmoroid.

what the?

that would have hurt

Imagine if she was stuck under water!

people need to think about mixing kids with pools

That is just horrible! What is wrong with people can they not install something to prevent this happening! Why must someone always be hurt before any action is taken! They should sue the pants off of the people who make those pump things...

This is an actual documented case as well as this is not the first time this has happened. There are other documented cases as well. I'm not really sure why you wouldn't believe it. It does say in the article that she would most likely have to be fed intravenously for the rest of her life so it must have pulled quite a bit out. Hardly sounds like this poor child just has a "bad hemmoroid."

I could hardly read this. It just made me cringe. Definitely will make me more cautious when my friend's children are in the pool where I live.

thats horrible , isnt it illegal for companies to make drains like that anyway for health and safety issues?

And...having dissected the intestines you should know that they are actually one long tube, winding back and forth like a river...each 'winding' being connected with membranous tissue. The force of the suction from these huge pumps did indeed suck her intestines out. The centrifugal force was greater than the strength of the membranous tissue that holds the intestines in place.

The thought of this makes me cringe...


... poor little girl...

http://news.findlaw.com/newsmakers/john.edwards.html

Valerie Lakey and John Edwards

Joc- Every single one of your posts is RIGHT ON TARGET. I agree whole-heartedly.

Horrible disaster and happens more than you realize poor baby...

Jody

Joc, great information. I was shocked when I read this several days ago in my local paper.

I used to own a home with a pool and I could have sworn the suction wasn't that great. Do you know if this is a concern with residential pools? I honestly didn't think the drain at the bottom of my pool did much of anything, I thought the scuppers did most of the suction into the pump (which would be hard or impossible for even the smallest child to sit on). I do know that the scupper created a ton of suction... I hooked the auto cleaner up to it.

The thing I always worried about with mine was that it was a diving pool, it had the neck breaker bottom (illegal to build now) that slanted from 11' to 4' in nothing flat. I put flower pots all over the diving board to keep people from diving in. Scary.

This is terrible. My deepest sympathies for the girl and her family. I knew there was a reason I don't like pools.

And this is why it is better to swim in rivers and lakes. No clorine which some people are alergic to, no pumps to harm children (or anyone else for that matter, I'm the size of a 12-year-old). And even the pond I have doesn't have this dangerous kind of filtration system. The pump is underneath something called a matrix which has holes not even large enough for an arm to get through. No pumps actually in the main body of the pool; it's too dangerous for the fish (or anyone else for that matter).

And because this has happened numerous times, you would think that someone would do something.

Typically it isn't a problem with residential pools. The reason is because the pumps aren't that big...therefore the suction isn't that great. In commercial pools....there are usually fountains and lots of jet holes just because of the size of the pools...add to it a spa...or a waterfall.

Everyone loves the jet holes on the side of the pools...few realize or think about that there is an opposite effect...for all the jet force there is a greater suction force.

Ahahaaaaaaaaaaaa joc works with pools maybe??? lmao only kidding, however you know your stuff!!!

I have grown up around pools and pretty much any kind of water, especially the sea.

This actually should not effect your swimming in a pool. Knowledge is power, therefore, this has been educational. Keep the kids aways from the drain. Period... (and yourselves)... I wouldn't outright abandon pools altogether.

Just a thought. Jody

swiming pools ,the goverment and manufactures need to do something to make sure thing like this dont happen

And moping makes it better? Your sympathy is useless in a practical sense, just their as laughter is. The way in which an uninvolved party reacts is of no consequence, so why should it matter?

All I can say is br00tal. *puts on Disembowelment CD*

Wow... I didn't know there was a docuented case of this, let alone at least three...

It's called prolapsed intestine and... wow, I can't even comprehend what it must be like...

The things that can happen to the human body...

Jesus...there is no way of putting her intestine back in?

It's all fun and games until someone loses their intestines.

Thats so sad, poor baby

I"ve never heard of this happening in Britain. Do we have a different pumping system ?

Joc's information is spot on, and I had no difficulty believing this story due to a condition known as rectal prolapse. Those who are morbidly obese are at risk, and pressure is the cause, not suction. Uterine prolapse is also possible for women in that state.

After taking a look at my bf's parent's pool this last weekend, I realized that this is really only a problem in commercial pools like joc mentioned.

Residential or smaller pools (my bf's parents's pool is about 40K gallons, so it's quite large for a residential pool, most residential pools are 15-18K more or less) don't have suction drains in the actual pool. The suction is located in the scupper. The scupper on a residential pool is a water level slat in the side of the pool that fills up a small holding area under the pool deck. Most have a lid over the holding area that the owner can remove the lid and attach a vacuum to the suction valve so they can clean the pool. It would be impossible for a kid or even a baby to sit inside the holding area, and the suction produced through the waterline slat is almost undetectable. The jet that forces water back into the pool can be small holes in the side, or like in my pool, it was at bottom and it only looked like a drain.

Now, the big huge olympic sized pools (100K gallons more or less?) that get heavy use and need lots of circulation and filtration have a much stronger pumping system. Those pumping systems take large quantities of water in through drains at the bottom of the pool, generally in the deep end. On a well maintained pool these aren't a problem because they're suppose to have protective cap over them that allows the water to only be sucked down in a way that prevents anyone from coming to harm--it sort of diffuses the sucking action. In the case of this poor little girl ,the grate (or cap) was missing, therefore the suction was far too strong and focused to be safe. Someone I'm sure will be sued over this one.

UUGGHH HORRIBLE! im sorry but the mods might close this, could give kids nightmares for weeks.

poor girl, howd she get out?

I've never seen how she got out of the pool. But the reality is that people should know about this problem, no matter how rare it is. It's a good reminder about pool and water safety. Check out that pool before you drop your 6 year old in. Make sure none of the pump caps are missing. You should be able to tell if they are.

I hate you all, now I have a sudden craving for sausage...