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Swimming pool accidents can cause serious injuries, including permanent brain damage, coma, and death. If you suffered injuries or a loved one passed away from a drowning incident in St. Louis, don’t go another day without learning your rights. A conversation with one of our swimming pool accident attorneys could help you understand your options as an accident victim. You may have grounds for a claim against the owner of the swimming pool, a negligent supervisor, a product manufacturer, or other parties. Let us help you today.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the fifth leading cause of unintentional injury death in the U.S. On average, 10 people die from accidental drowning in the country every day. A large number (about one in five) of these victims are small children under the age of 14. Children four years old and younger have the largest percentage of drowning rates in the country. While all accidental drownings are tragic, coping with deaths that stem from someone else’s negligence can be the most difficult.
Most children ages one to four who die in swimming accidents drown in a pool at home. Often, a prudent pool owner can prevent child drowning incidents by adequately safeguarding the swimming pool. For example, putting up a four-sided swimming pool fence reduces a child’s risk of drowning by 83% compared to just a three-sided pool enclosure. It’s critical for pool owners to protect children from these “attractive nuisances” with pool fencing, barriers, covers, security gates, motion-sensor alarms, and other measures.
An attractive nuisance is a dangerous property element that naturally attracts curious children. The law holds property owners to stringent standards in terms of keeping attractive nuisances safe for neighborhood kids – even those who trespass on a property without permission. If your child stumbled upon or fell into someone else’s swimming pool and drowned in St. Louis, you likely have a claim against the property owner. Otherwise, your claim could name a negligent school, supervisor, or product manufacturer as a defendant. Speak to a swimming pool injury lawyer to learn more about what safety precautions pool owners should take.
One of the first steps in recovering compensation for someone’s accidental drowning injuries is determining the defendant or the party allegedly liable for the incident. The defendant will be the person whose negligence was the proximate cause of the accident. It is possible to have more than one defendant per claim. The owner of the private swimming pool may be the defendant if he or she was negligent in keeping it safe for visitors and trespassing children. Otherwise, the following parties could face liability for pool-related injuries:
Determining liability takes an understanding of the law in Missouri as well as an investigation into who or what likely contributed to the accident. Once you identify the defendant, you must file your claim within the state’s statute of limitations. For most personal injury claims, the deadline is five years from the date of the accident. To make sure you file before time runs out, contact a swimming pool injury attorney as quickly as you can after suffering pool-related injuries or the death of a loved one. Goldblatt + Singer offers free initial case evaluations. Schedule yours online or over the phone at (314) 231-4100.