Near-Tragedy at BWV Luna Park Pool Water Slide

[JudithM]

Originally posted by d-r
You know what, the point is that everyone should watch their children at all times in the pool. That's just the bottom line of it. I used to be a life guard in the summers, and I had to pull kids out a few times. I can't imagine that the life guard didn't have a whistle and was just shouting - that shouldn't be the case at all.

DR

Well said! Thank you.

 

[Scoootch]

Originally posted by msdis
The apple never falls far from the tree.

MsDis -- I could not agree with you more!

Bottom line no matter how you slice it , is that if the child (or children) are being supervised, as in actually being watched, not just being at the pool area with them, this wouldn't be an issue.

You cannot idiot proof everything!

 

[d-r]

Man you know I kind of forgot a little how freaky that keister coaster clown face is -

 

[Ralph&Pam]

I share the concerns expressed by Wes on this one, even if the speed coming down the slide is much less than at one of the water parks or SAB. Keep in mind that a fair number of adults use that slide as well. I've been on it many times. I hate to think about what would happen if my feet met the head or chest of a small child as I reached the end of the slide. One critical factor in a collision is momentum transfer and momentum depends on both mass and speed. Unfortunately, my mass is substantially more than that of a child.

Ralph

 

[WDWDad]

O.K. I hope this doesn't get to long

#1 - I am glad no one got hurt during this encounter, and I doubt that any serious injury would have occurred ( I have had to push myself along on some of these slides to keep going). I agree with the point that the little girl shouldn't have been there and that the parents should instruct her better.

#2 - Is it possible the lifeguard might deserve the benefit of the doubt here. Perhaps he was weighing his/her decision to jump in vs. his responsibility to the other swimmers in the pool. Perhaps he assumed that the parents would quickly intervene. Perhaps he felt a strong responsibility to a weak swimmer nearby.

#3 - I disagree with the general tone, I am not directly quoting anyone, that a parent is irresonsible if you are more than an arms length away from your child in the pool. As the parent of three 11,7,6, I have been to every pool on property. I am not always in the pool with my kids. They all swim like fish. My yougest child can swim across the OKW pool underwater! Does this mean that I must ride shotgun on them whenever they are in the water? I am always in attendance at the pool, they are never allowed to go in without their mother or I there. If only one of us is around they must get out of the pool and wait for us if we need to go to the bathroom or leave for anyother reason. They have never in 13 trips been given a reprimand by a life guard around the pool, except once the boys were asked to slow down on the way to the slide at the GF. That earned each of them a 5 minute time out. I am not advocating that parents have the right to drop kids off at the pool and leave ,but we shouldn't label all parents as irresponsible if they are not next to their children in the pool.

#4 - Several pools on property have features which appear to be part of the pool area, but are actually offlimits. This design problem makes it difficult for the lifeguards. I have seen children playing in the dolphin pool at OKW and climbing on the pyramid at Coranado. I have seen teens jumping from bridges around the pools at OKW and PO Riverside. More thought should be put into the pool designs to make them less tempting. ie... don't show a kid a beatiful blue dolphin next to a pool and then tell them; Sorry it's for looks only.

Sorry about the length. Just several things I wanted to say.

 

[Scoootch]

I don't think anyone is saying that you should be so close to your kids in the pool that you can actually reach out and grab them because you are no more than 2 feet from them.

I do think however, that you need to be close enough that if you are sitting on a loungechair you can still have a good view of your kids and be totally aware of what they are doing. If the parents were physically watching their child, they would have been aware of what she was doing and would have stopped her from doing it to begin with. (or at least I would hope they would have stopped her!) Too many parents are no where to be found and not watching their kids. I don't consider a kid who's parents are at the pool but in the hot tub or on the other side of the pool area out of sight where they can't see their child to be under supervision. If you cannot physically see your kid, you are not watching them.

 

[Disney Doll]

WDWDad...it sounds like you are a responsible parent, especially based on the fact that your children are never left alone at a pool. Quite frankly, in this case, the parents do carry most of the blame. The hot tub at the BW pool area is in an area sort of to the left of the pool, surrounded by nice private bushes. I think it's quite nice that while this kid's parents were in the hot tub area have a nice secluded little quiet time, their kid was climbing all over the pool, a hair's breath away from being injured. I agree that they didn't need to be within an arm's length of her, but it would be nice if they could actually SEE her, which I'm sure, based on your description of how you and your DW handle pooltime with your family, you would be within eyesight of your child, and I doubt your child would have had the opportunity to climb across the face of the clown without you or your DW knowing it. You are the kind of parents I love...the kind that actually watch their children. Unfortunately, you are in the minority, at least from what I see.

 

[Granny]

A sad part of this is that had that climbing child been injured....her parents would probably have sued Disney and won!!

I'm glad there were no injuries, but this situation doesn't surprise me. Had someone told the parents what had happened, I'm sure they would have just waved it off as "kids will be kids".

 

[jetman]

The real problem here lies with the parents. Many think because they are on vacation and at Disney, they don't have to watch their children closely or at all. I see this at the pools and in the parks. It's too bad you can't teach common sense!!!

 

[Wes]

I've settled down enough from the event to think some more about what realistically could be done -- and what the implications would be for the different options.

Certainly having the life guard blow a whistle would be an improvement, but the girl was so intensely focused and the noise enough that even that might have done no good to gain her attention.

I had thought at first of putting in some smooth red plastic, as a collar for the clown, which could extend out far enough from the wall so that it could not be reached from the wall. It would still be aesthetically appropriate. But in thinking about it more, I am sure she would have just figured out a way around it -- this girl is going to be able to go places: she was definitely a problem solver. And even if it did stop her, other kids would climb on it. And it would also create a blind spot behind the collar, in which a kid could be in real trouble and not be seen. So I don't think my original thought would make things better.

There have been a lot of people who have posted that the basic problem was the parents not taking care of their daughter -- and they are right. And some have then gone on to say that the solution is getting parents to take care of their kids. That is wishful thinking and unrealistic. We have to deal with life as it is, and that means relying solely on parental control in this case is unrealistic. We need to expect that some parents will not control their children and that their children can endanger both themselves and other children; that's just the way things are.

I see no way that Disney can enforce parental control. The man who grabbed the girl did ask her "Didn't you hear the life guard calling you?" But no one did anything to follow the girl when she trotted around the bushes that separate the pool from the hot tub and find her parents and let them know what had happened -- or take more stringent measures. That is one thing that I think someone in authority over the pool should have done but did not do. But there you get into touchy issues that Disney may not want to involve staff members in. My own reaction (I was in the pool, keeping an eye on both grandsons.) was to wade over to my grandson who had come down the slide, who I was simply glad was unhurt.

Some people have said that other pools have lifeguards in the water at the base of the slides. And I think that would have worked here. Even if the lifeguard had been on the other side of the clown's mouth from the girl, I think the closeness to the girl would have allowed him or her to break through her mental focus and wake her up to the wider situation that she was ignoring.

So that's my best answer right now ... a lifeguard in the pool by the clown's mouth -- and a lifeguard with a whistle that they will use.