Don't Sit On Your Brother When He's Under Water, and Other Rules

[BPSCG]

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Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. "One bounce!"

"Man, you can't do anything," groused a drenched and chastened teenage boy who had just been whistled for taking an extra spring on the diving board at the popular swim park run by the Montgomery County Department of Recreation.

Next to the board, fastened to a chain-link fence, is a list of diving do's and don'ts. Another placard catalogues 14 rules governing behavior on the Lazy River float pool. More prohibitions are posted next to the water slides, the lap lanes and the baby pool. In all, swimming at MLK pool is governed by almost 90 rules and regs, according to its Web site, from No Spitting Water to No Prolonged Underwater Swimming.

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At most community pools, the highest single expense is likely to be the annual premium for liability insurance, according to York, who has managed the River Falls pool for 21 years. The pool carries a $5 million policy and has been stripped of slide boards and other accessories declared non-grata by insurers. A high dive? Forget it, unless you take out a separate policy to cover it, York said.

"Accidents happen, but everyone is looking for someone to blame when they get hurt," he said.

It's not just lawyers and insurers calling for more restrictions, said Melanie Sasse, who oversees 11 swim centers as Montgomery's aquatics program supervisor. Often pool patrons resist the direction of lifeguards unless they see an explicit policy.

"If a guard says, 'You can't carry the kid on your shoulder,' they will say, 'Show me where it's written,' " Sasse said. "They will challenge it even when it's a risk to people's lives."

They should have a rule saying, "No Arguing With the Lifeguard."

 

[Ranb]

I read a story about a life guard on Oahu warning some swimmers not to jump off of the rocks into the ocean. One guy ignored the warning, did a handstand into the water, breaking his back on the rocks below. The idiot sued the county saying the life guard failed to prevent his injuries; he lost. A county official stated they would have started to close more beaches if they lost.

This did not stop the county from closing Sacred Falls trail after a rock slide killed several tourists. Even though there were/are several warning signs on the trail, a state judge decided that the state was negligent. It is a crime to trespass on Oahu's closed hiking trails, and fines are handed out now.

Ranb