Grim Discovery

[PaysBasque]

When I ventured out to the pool area today I thought that the cover looked a bit odd, as if we had forgotten to take a blow-up toy out before closing the pool. Well, you probably guessed, it wasn't a toy but the neighbour's dog, very dead! Anyway, the poor beast must have fallen in about 4 or 5 days ago and couldn't get out. Now my question: Do you think it will be enough to Shock-clorinate (Sp) the pool, as letting the water out is out of the question? The pool is 11x5m, saltwater.

Thanks for your advice.

[Fantine<br><br><br><br>Susie]

Very sad... but just as well it wasn't the next door's grand child.

Not sure about Chlore Choc in a salt water pool so can't offer any advice, sorry.

[Richardh<HR> <a target=_blank href="http:www.piscine-barriere.com"><U><FONT color=#0000ff size=1>www.piscine-barriere.com<U><FONT><A><P><P>]

I presume that wasn't an AFNOR approved cover then?

If the dog hadn't started to decompose, which is unlikely unless it is unseasonable hot where you are, then you should be able to treat the water. I'd get professional advice though..

[PaysBasque]

Thanks very much. We have treated the pool with Chlor Choc now, as even our poolman could not tell us exactly what to do. Anyway, the whole thing has brought home to me how dangerous an unfenced pool is and we will now install a fence as soon as possible, even though we don't have to before the end of the year.

[Battypuss]

I have no idea of the size of the ex-dog, but a salutory lesson, none the less? I frequently bleat about French laws/regulations and general nitpicking, but fencing in swimming pools is the most sensible sugestion I have heard in years. I realise it won't be cheap, for them as wot has pools like.

 

But what price a life? Regardless of whether dog, human or come what may...

[Miki]

But no one has ansewered the question of when the rivers and seas will be fenced in ?

I am serious, you simply cannot fence in a pool and then think that will be it.

There are far too many human errors that can still enter the equation and knowing some parents, they will feel that all is now OK and let their little kids roam free believing that the pool is now safe and secure. I can think of a few things that could still happen to allow a kiddie to fall in the pool and drown, even with all the added security laws.

Nothing but nothing will ever bear parental care and this new law was the worst knee jerk reaction, that perhaps only France could well and truly bodge up.

[Richardh<HR> <a target=_blank href="http:www.piscine-barriere.com"><U><FONT color=#0000ff size=1>www.piscine-barriere.com<U><FONT><A><P><P>]

Here's the statistics for 1Jun - 1 Sep 2003

Swimming pools 172 drowning incidents/ 52 deaths

Rivers 153/105

Lakes 156/93

Sea 560/160

Clearly the smallest number of drownings were in pools, but then you have to start somewhere and pools are containable. If even half that number are saved then it must be viewed as a major success.

Have a look at the stats for Australia, New Zealand, Florida, Arizona etc where all pools must be fenced and you'll find that it works. To be even safer of course you should incorporate every option you can, so that if they get over the fence then at least the alarm will be your last line of defence. Depends how much you love your kids I guess.

Richard

[Miki]

"...Depends how much you love your kids I guess"

Exactly my point, if you love your kids couldn't you therefore say one wouldn't need fences to be a factor between life or death in a pool ?

You guard them against the sea and rivers, heights and depths, it is far too emotive to simply say the fence proves how much you love your kids and sorry but a very invalid point to my mind.

Perhaps you could enlarge on the 1st June - 1st September deaths of 52 please.

As far as Australia is concerned they claim it has saved 70 lives in 10 years, with the best will in the world that figure can only come from the previous decades record and I have read some authorities have said that a national yearly campaign of the dangers and warning parents would have produced similar results.I wouldn't want to say fences are not useful but as in so many other cases, once you "relax" parental control, it can put an extremely false picture as to the safeness of ones toddlers.

"You have to start somewhere "!

So this is the start, the next phase is for fencing rivers and seas, I really think not..

[SaligoBay]

I wasn't too pleased about having to fence in the pool area, because it's so small already, it'll make it like a prison!   

But the thought of children getting in when we're not there is just too horrible to contemplate.  A dead dog or cat I could deal with, it would only be nuisance value, but a dead child - no way!!  I'd have to move house, or fill the pool in with concrete if that happened.

Anyway, our outdoor eating space is right next to the pool, and that's okay when the pool has its cover on, but when we took the cover off last weekend, it all seemed quite scary.   No, the fence will be installed, even if only to stop me taking a flying leap into the pool with a big bowl of gazpacho in my hands! 

[Ron Avery]

[quote]But no one has ansewered the question of when the rivers and seas will be fenced in ?I am serious, you simply cannot fence in a pool and then think that will be it. There are far too many human errors...[/quote]

Ever heard of the expression "reasonably practicable" Miki?  Well it is in most EU and UK safety legislation.  It means that precautions taken to prevent an incident or accident must be reasonable in terms of cost, time and trouble, taking into account the likelihood of an accident  That is why swimming pools are being fenced, because it reasonably practicable to do so and given he number of incidents, and rivers and the sea are not being fenced.

You are right, you cannot simply put a fence round a pool and forget it, it is like the guard on a dangerous piece of machinery, you don't simplty install it, you still train and supervise, but it is there for the time that something goes wrong with control and supervision and is in effect like your hard hat, the last resort

[Miki]

[quote]I wasn't too pleased about having to fence in the pool area, because it's so small already, it'll make it like a prison! But the thought of children getting in when we're not there is just too ho...[/quote]

Yes of course one must guard against all eventualities and try to live as fear free as possible of anything dreadful happening.

So I simply ask this, not to you personally SB but to everyone who has had a pool for a year or so, why have all these people waited until legislation has been passed before standing up for the reasons ? Nothing has changed, the pool is still dangerous as it was before the law was passed. No, to my mind and experience it has taken the fear of the massive fine to make people agree to do it, the cost of the fencing was just too expensive before to justify doing it, so families just had to guard childen themselves.

If I am wrong, then please tell me why thousands of pools were not fenced in and have security features before? OK, I'll give you the pools who didn't have kids to worry about, so what about those with kids, why didn't they do it before ? Was it just down to costs ?

Our friends in Spain put up their (private) pool fence 6 years ago so they could lock it completely when not able to give full attention to their kids. This is fine in a private environment but put it in a two gite to a complex situation with many kids and adults in and out all day long, then it will be back to human errors or human watchdogs again. One thing for sure, the alarm system alone will just not suffice in these cases. It will be going on and off all day for various reasons until people will probably just ignore it in the end.

I have had talks with so many people over this, that I am still very much in fear, that the new laws may well do as much harm as good in several circumstances.

[SaligoBay]

So I simply ask this, not to you personally SB

Phew, thank goodness for that! 

Our feeble excuse is that we've only been in the house 5 months.  The people before us?  Don't know, they had 2 teenagers and were possibly working up to a divorce for quite a while, so didn't see the need to invest in expensive fencing.  

If I had small children there's no way I would leave a pool unprotected, law or not.   Small children are such unpredictable little gadgets.

[Miki]

"If I had small children there's no way I would leave a pool unprotected, law or not. Small children are such unpredictable little gadgets"

And of course, children since time began have been so and have to be thought of as such.

Pools just about anywhere in France have always had the possibilty, sadly, of a child falling in and I had to agree with our friends when they fenced their pool in. I am really talking about the laws when it involves gite complexes etc.

A private pool and the regulations can be far more rigidly enforced than a place where far too many external factors will come in to play.

Be warned those with complexes etc, knowing "France", you will be blamed even if you have all the regs in place. The people who made the regulations will not want to be seen as having anything to do with it not working in practice. Be absolutely sure that fence, gate and whatever else, is 100% child proof.

[Richardh<HR> <a target=_blank href="http:www.piscine-barriere.com"><U><FONT color=#0000ff size=1>www.piscine-barriere.com<U><FONT><A><P><P>]

Hi Miki,

I think your last comment:

Be warned those with complexes etc, knowing "France", you will be blamed even if you have all the regs in place. The people who made the regulations will not want to be seen as having anything to do with it not working in practice. Be absolutely sure that fence, gate and whatever else, is 100% child proof.

is the essence of the matter.

It's the law. Any attempt to justify a thorny hedge, a high chain link fence or any other alternative that doesn't comply in an attempt to save money will potentially end in financial disaster. We all knowe how pedantic the French authorities are.

Richard

[Georgina]

[quote]When I ventured out to the pool area today I thought that the cover looked a bit odd, as if we had forgotten to take a blow-up toy out before closing the pool. Well, you probably guessed, it wasn't a ...[/quote]

Sorry to get off the question, but how did you explain that to your neighbour, how did they take it? That is just a really awful job for you.

Georgina

[Cat]

[quote]Sorry to get off the question, but how did you explain that to your neighbour, how did they take it? That is just a really awful job for you. Georgina[/quote]

Georgina raises exactly the same question I had in my mind when I first read the original posting.

I have to admit that I'm not really a dog lover, but even so my first thought was not "how will they get the pool fit for swimming"?  It was more along the lines of "good grief, how awful, poor dog, what on earth can they say to the neighbours?"

Hope everyone is still on speaking terms

 

[benson]

Am I correct in thinking that it is only sunken pools to which the fencing rule applies??

Last year we bought an above ground pool the plunge pool type, we did not put a fence around it and as we were 'camping' right next to it, it was well supervised, my youngest child was 17 months old at the time and couldnt even see over the top.

Now she is a year older and has already devised a way to climb up the sides and could easily fall in so we will be fencing around it this year in an effort to make it safer even though it is not law. It is an expense that we could do without but we could not do without the kids (well most of the time anyway!!!!!)

Surely it is common sense for those of us with kids or those who have pools at their gites etc to make these areas as safe as possible anyway with or without a law and for ALL pool types.

This said we also have a well with a locked grate so thats ok and a pond that needs fencing and a trough (how do we get around that one)  The dangers of water are everywhere and we cant eleminate them all.

[Deby]

My opinion is that if you can afford a pool, you have a responsibility to fence it.  I would hate to live next door to someone who had an unfenced pool - I have 2 small children.  The lure of other people splashing around next door to them would be an incredibly tempting proposition. 

Our pool is costing (and I use present tense as we are continuously forking out for it) us a small fortune, the fence alone cost 6K.  Is this the price of a life?  I will still be jittery during our main season as I know how complacement adults and children can be.

I love the pool but I also see it as a hazard and lets face it most of us grew up without one in their backgarden, so I am glad the law exists because I am prone to distraction and I do not have eyes in the back of my head.

I would also fence off a lake/pond/a well.  I would bare in mind AFNOR's Guidelines but I would not  buy their approved fences to do this. I would like to think I am sensible but then I would wouldnt' I!!!

[PaysBasque]

In reply to Georgina and Cat46: The neighbours actually took it really well and were more worried about the inconvenience caused to us. The dog was their oldest at 15 and they had thought that she had gone somewhere to die (but not drown). So when I went there I just said 'I'm sorry to bring you some bad news, but I've found your dog in my pool and she is dead'. I am actually on very good terms with them and their dogs were very often in my garden in order to find something edible (spayed bitches do like to eat!), and I never complained about that. It was really worse for me because I hadn't realised that it had fallen in and I felt really sorry for the poor dog, but as everybody says, thank goodness it wasn't a child!