Prompted by the first downing in the municipal pool’s history, and by complaints by residents about a lack of response by lifeguards, the city and director of pool operations will make safety changes.
On June 29, a Bayonne senior citizen drowned in the pool, the first drowning since the pool’s opening. The incident was followed by complaints by witnesses who claimed the lifeguard staff did not respond.
Last week, a second resident complained that lifeguards failed to respond to a possible life-threatening situation. Christina Egberts said that on July 6, her daughter wandered from the kiddie pool into the adult pool. When she called out to the lifeguards to help, she said, they were talking and didn’t notice.
In response to both reports, Mayor Joseph V. Doria said the city is in the process of “reviewing all policies” at the DiMomenico Municipal Pool to assure that all procedures are appropriate.
The pool is located on the upper level of the 16th Street (DiMomenico) Park.
Save the life of my child
According to Egberts, she was at the pool with her 1-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter, along with other family members, in the early afternoon on July 6. She said her daughter wandered toward the adult pool. Her son was being supervised by Egberts’ sister-in-law.
I had gone up to throw some garbage away on the left side of the kiddie pool,” Egberts said. “Then I saw my daughter going towards the big pool’s direction. So I called out for her to come back, and followed her. As I got closer, I didn’t see her, so I panicked. Then I saw her by the end of the ramp inside the big pool, flapping her arms as she was trying to keep her head above the water. Then she went under completely.”
As Egberts ran toward her daughter, she yelled to the lifeguards, she said. But she claims they were talking to each other and didn’t hear her call.
So I ran and jumped into the pool and got my daughter out,” Egberts said. “I made sure she was breathing. She coughed up some water and hugged me.”
When Egberts confronted the lifeguards about their lack of response, she said they seemed unmoved, and, in fact, they informed Egberts the pool had regulations prohibiting people from entering the pool in street clothing. Egberts was wearing a tank top and jeans.
“I was shocked that their reaction was not to ask if [my daughter] was okay, nor to check her, or apologize for not looking or hearing my call,” Egberts said, “but to tell me that I should not have gone in there with clothes on.”
She said she got an equally cool reception from the pool supervisor when she approached him with her complaint. “He was very rude, and proceeded to tell me that it was my responsibility to watch my daughter,” she said. “I agreed, and I told him that if it wasn’t for me watching my daughter, she would have drowned.”
Took her concerns to the city
Egberts has taken her concerns to the city, suggesting that lifeguards should open their ears and eyes to potential problems.
“Of course, the responsibility of watching the children is of the parent, but the lifeguards should be aware of the surrounding at all times,” she said. “Children run off in seconds, and I suggest there should be a gate around the kiddie pool, dividing the pools so that these kind of incidents don’t happen.”
The city has already taken corrective action.
To avoid the problem of young children like Egberts’ from wandering from the kiddy pool to the adult pool area, Mayor Doria has ordered the installation of additional fencing to separate the two pools.
There is already a fence in place,” he said. “The new fencing will be installed alongside the handicapped ramp that runs from the pool in order to make the area more secure. This change will make it easier to keep very little children contained in the kiddie pool area.”
Doria said the pool follows the safety standards set by the New Jersey State Sanitary Code, Chapter 9 governing Public Recreational Bathing, a code that covers numerous aspects of pool layout and operations.
“Over the course of 48 years, under the leadership of Tom Wojsawowicz and other directors, the pool has had an outstanding safety record,” Doria said. “In order to maintain this record, the city of Bayonne must always be willing to learn. In living memory, until this season, there was never a similar situation at the pool that resulted in a swimmer’s loss of life. The safety of our residents must come first. I am willing to take whatever appropriate steps are necessary to achieve this.”
In the previous incident, the senior citizen who drowned, Arthur Penn, 69, was pronounced dead after his body was recovered from the bottom of the pool’s shallow end. By the time someone noticed him under water, it was too late.
Staff is trained, but will get more
Wojslawowicz said the pool has 10 lifeguards. At any given time, nine lifeguards are on duty and one is on break.
There is always at least one adult supervisor present as well as a police officer. The lifeguards range in age from 16 to 21. They must all pass a Red Cross-certified training course. The Red Cross training includes observation skills to help lifeguards recognize and prevent injuries; rescue skills in the water and on the land; first aid training and professional rescuer CPR; and professional lifeguard responsibilities such as interacting with the public.
Until now, there have been weekly meetings with the lifeguards and Pool Director Wojslawowicz, and regular drills one day a week. Doria has asked Wojslawowicz to schedule daily meetings with the lifeguards and surprise drills throughout the week. The mayor also said the city will take steps to recruit additional candidates for the 2005 lifeguard course and more lifeguards for next year’s pool season.
Doria said that Bayonne’s emergency services can respond to the pool rapidly to handle emergencies. In the event of cardiac problems at the pool, the Fire and Police departments as well as McCabe Ambulance vehicles that respond to the facility are equipped with defibrillators.
This last was in response to concerns raised by several senior citizens after the late June drowning, who worried over the impact and response to a possible heart attack.
While there is no defibrillator at the pool itself, Doria said there is one located at the 16th Street firehouse, which is right across the street from the pool.
Wojslawowicz said additional defibrillator will be added to the pool complex this summer and that only properly trained personnel will be allowed to operate it. The director said emergency technicians have advised him that people cannot be defibrillated in standing water.
A defibrillator is a device that helps maintain the heartbeat in a person suffering an attack, by sending electric shocks to the heart. Such a device can be dangerous in a pool setting, where water can cause the charge to carry beyond heart stimulation and possibly injure the person being treated or those operating the device.
To assure safety, additional preparation must be under taken before hooking up the device to a person. Wojslawowicz said anyone defibrillating a swimmer must remove the person from standing water and dry the person’s body before initiating the procedure.