When, by any standards, 2.3m is very deep, and by HSG179 standards is too deep for there to be no supervision
What happened?
A 3 year-old girl was on holiday with her parents at a seafront hotel. They went for a swim in the hotel pool. There was no lifeguard in place, and the hotel relied on use of CCTV, supplemented by physical checks of the poolside by staff. The girl was not wearing or using any buoyancy or swimming aids while in the water.
The mother was unable to support the girl in the water and she sank to the bottom of the 2.3m deep end. Efforts were made by her parents to recover her from the bottom but were unable to dive to the required depth to recover her. A customer in the changing room, who also happened to be a lifeguard and swimming teacher but who did not work at this hotel, was the first to respond to cries for help.
She was able to recover the girl from the swimming pool bottom and CPR was commenced. Staff from the hotel supported efforts to resuscitate her and to summon assistance from the emergency services. Paramedics arrived and continued to work to resuscitate her before transferring her to hospital. After three cardiac arrests, the girl was pronounced dead.
The pool had signage in place which included advice for swimmers about the pool depth and that only competent swimmers should go past a certain point. The pool had CCTV cameras in place visible from the reception desk. The receptionist and was expected to undertake other duties and was therefore unable to constantly view the pool area.
Legal Outcome
The hotel was charged with one count of a breach of s.3(1) HSWA 1974, and one count of a breach of Regulation 3(1) MHSWR 1999 for failing to make a suitable and sufficient risk assessment.
The hotel pleaded guilty to both charges and was fined £100,000 with prosecution costs of £19,724.68.
What can we learn from what happened?
It is clear from this case that HSG179 (managing health and safety in swimming pools) has teeth in law. Yes, it is guidance, not absolute law, but any pool operator would be foolish to not comply with it, as in the event of an accident, such as this tragic case, non-compliance is very difficult to defend.
The key issue here was the absence of constant supervision given the depth of the water. The pool was 2.3m deep where the girl drowned – HSG179 (V3 – the relevant version at the time) says it is ‘strongly recommended’ when the depth is greater than 1.5m.
What was astonishing about this case is that after the fatality, the hotel decided to increase its staffing level at reception, not on poolside. Another feature of this case was the absence of any staff, on poolside or not, who had any basic life support skills, and what was also astonishing is that it took the hotel two months after the fatality to address this. I won’t be going there on my holidays.
Source of Information
QLM Newsletter
Water Incident Research Hub – please note this resource provides significant detail about this and other water related cases.