News

Understanding Risk Management at Army Pools
Date Posted: 12/17/2008

By Rob McIlvaine
FMWRC Public Affairs

Army Aquatics Managers & Leaders in Fitness, Recreation Keep Learning in San Antonio | Understanding Risk Management at Army Pools | Learning to SWET Might Save a Soldier's Life | Many Garrison Pools will close if not in compliance with new Legislation

“There’s three things you can do to prevent getting sued for something that happens at your pool,” said Ernie Kanaki, FMWRC Aquatics Manager, and the audience seemed to know the answer, immediately.

Laurie Denomme, Assistant Director of Operations at Aquatic Exercise Association, takes a break with participants in vertical training at Fort Sam Houston as Mary O. Wykle, Aquatics & Health Manager with MW Associates in Virginia, discusses the exercise they just completed. - Photo by Rob McIlvaine, FMWRC Public Affairs

“You can close the pool. You can get insurance policies. Or, you can manage the risk.”

Over 90 Army aquatic professionals from garrisons around the world came together in San Antonio, Texas to be trained in the latest techniques, learn best pool management practices, and earn professional certifications at the Athletic Business Conference and Expo.

High on the list of priorities for Army aquatic managers is the development of a level of standards for risk management, something Kanaki hopes to deliver by the spring of 2009.

Some of those standards, based on feedback from Army aquatic leaders, are: layered supervision (with one area being video monitors) to improve safety; lifeguard training; updated health codes; standardized methods of documentation; pool analysis and chemical treatment; better orientation manuals; updating of water fitness; national agreements in partnership with the Red Cross; and natatorium pool needs and design.

“In 1999, we asked what our standards should be in fitness and aquatics, as far as staffing, equipment, training, and programming. Although the determining factor is the funding, the first step is to develop the standards,” said Janet MacKinnon, FMWRC Community Recreation chief of operations.
According to MacKinnon, community recreation has come a long way in the last ten years.

While the Army still has a long way to go, help is forthcoming.

“CDC (Centers for Disease Control) is giving a lot of good advice on how to prevent disease at pools,” said Kanaki.

“They are developing a model aquatic health code (MAHC) based on input from many committees to address issues such as adjustment of chlorine levels to maintain health standards, pool design, lifeguard training, and the number of lifeguards needed based on the size of the pool.”

According to Kanaki, some of the other issues to be addressed are automatic chemical controllers for Army pools, raised facility standards, and “layered supervision” from parents, lifeguards, head lifeguards, supervisors, directors, safety officers and medics.

To keep abreast of all of the above requires something no one enjoys: paperwork.

“We must document everything from water testing to in-service training. If it’s not documented, you didn’t do it,” Kanaki told an audience to emphasize the importance of this tedious task able to reduce legal costs and time.

In order to bring Army aquatics up to speed on research and the latest in standards at the conference, the Aquatic Risk Management Series was led by two subject matter experts from Aquatic Safety Research Group, LLC.

Dr. Tom Griffiths, a professor at Penn State and Shawn DeRosa, a lawyer from Boston have extensive experience in consulting, training and providing expert witness services in public pool issues. They have also spent years coaching swimmers and divers, and managing pools and waterfronts, respectively.

Given that most lifeguards across the country are between the ages of 16 and 20, Shawn DeRosa began to spell out where many public pool issues arise.

“After completing a basic nine-hour CPR class and then sending them out to protect the customers, we hold these teens to a level of high expectations. But there’s a lot more they must be taught and they need constant supervision. Because ultimately, they are not the ones that will have to go to court; the pool manager will.”

Public and semi-public pools often offer many physical layers of protection against injury, including rules and regulations published in newsletters and on websites, signs, fences, self-closing, self-latching gates, and finally, lifeguards.

But lifeguards, alone, do not ensure safety. Rather, lifeguards work with parents to help prevent accidents, respond to emergencies, provide water safety education to children and parents, and most important, provide surveillance.

According to Griffiths, though, lifeguards have other things on their mind.

“Across the country, 2,000 teen lifeguards said the most important things on their mind are to prevent boredom, have fun and get a tan.”

The all-day seminar in San Antonio was designed to help pool managers understand how to educate their young lifeguards, how to develop risk management strategies, how to minimize risks, understand the “seven deadly sins” (key areas which should be addressed by all aquatic facilities) and the five “C’s” of signage (effective methods to ensure customers understand the dangers), the latest research on genetic reasons people die in pools, and the one new legislative act that captured everyone’s interest: the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool & Spa Safety Act (VGB Act).

For more information, visit www.aquaticsafetygroup.com
All aquatic facilities must comply with this act by Dec. 19, 2008 or risk severe penalties.

Signed last year by President Bush, the VGB Act provides incentives for states to adopt comprehensive pool safety laws that will protect children from life-threatening injuries and deaths from dangerous pool and spa drains.

The law is named for the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, who joined Graeme's mother, Nancy Baker, and Safe Kids USA in a three-year advocacy campaign for the legislation. In 2002 at the age of 7, Graeme Baker died in a spa after the powerful suction of a drain entrapped her under water.

However, according to officials with the National Recreation and Park Association and the National Swimming Pool Foundation, “…a recent staff interpretation of the law by the Consumer Products Safety Commission has created significant concern about the ability of facilities throughout the country to comply by the December 19, 2008 deadline.”
One final note on risk management:

According to the CDC, the past two decades have seen an increase in the number of Recreational Water Illness (RWI) outbreaks associated with swimming pools, water parks, hot tubs, lakes, rivers, and oceans.

CDC's Healthy Swimming program offers information and resources to raise awareness about RWIs and how to prevent them by practicing "Healthy Swimming" behaviors. (www.cdchealthyswimming.gov)

While closing the pool sometimes might seem the best way to avoid many of the pitfalls in managing a swimming pool, learning to manage the risks thanks to the help of many organizations across the country will ensure safe fun in the water will always be available.

Link for more info: http://www.cdc.gov/healthySwimming/