Eight children who had been using the new children’s pool in Menlo Park’s Burgess Aquatics Center one afternoon last week were hit with a range of harsh physical symptoms that brought fire district paramedics rushing to the scene and prompted an environmental health department inspection.
The source of the problem, which sent one youngster to the hospital for observation, remains a mystery. But the June 16 incident appears to have been triggered by the accidental shutdown and subsequent startup of the system that circulates water in the small pool designed for kids.
The pool reopened within an hour after the incident occurred; the health department inspection and water testing done by the pool operator found no problem.
Emergency services were called in at about 3:15 p.m. that day after the eight children experienced burning eyes and throats and other symptoms, according to Tim Campbell, a battalion chief with the Menlo Park Fire Protection District.
While some at the scene, including Mr. Campbell, suspected a problem with the chlorine flow into the pool, aquatics center operator Tim Sheeper refuted that, and said panic was a more likely suspect.
At least one mother on the scene, a registered nurse who didn’t want to be identified, said she believed the children were under real physical distress, and said she observed some of them gasping for air, coughing and vomiting. One little boy, she said, was lethargic and appeared to be losing consciousness.
Battalion Chief Campbell said he was told that some of the children were stricken while in the pool, but Mr. Sheeper said that was not the case. He said the children had been taken out of the pool before any physical symptoms were reported for an entirely different reason: A child had hit an emergency stop switch, shutting down a pump that circulates water in the pool.
The children were being taken to a different area of the pool complex when the complaints began. Mr. Sheeper said a likely scenario is that they were still near the pool when the pump was turned back on, allowing the water to flow again; the strong smell of chlorinated water returned to the air, causing kids and their parents to think something was amiss.
Mr. Campbell, the battalion chief, said at least one witness reported seeing a vapor cloud over the pool when the water flow resumed.
But Mr. Sheeper insisted that nothing out of the ordinary occurred. “Those people don’t have an intricate understanding of the pool or the chemical content of the water,” he said. “We deal with this pool 14 hours a day, and it was fine.”
The incident, he said, arose “more from a sense of panic, (from) just not knowing what was actually going on.
“Parents get scared, and end up scaring their kids,” he said. “On the other hand, I’m a parent of three kids, and I understand the parenting instinct (to protect one’s children).”
Mr. Sheeper and Michael Taylor, the city’s acting director of community services, said the chlorine level of the pool’s water was manually tested immediately after the children started complaining of symptoms, and there was nothing unusual in the chemical balance.
The registered nurse who was at the center with her son and spoke with the Almanac afterward was highly critical of the response of the center’s staff. They “had no idea what to do,” she said, and they wouldn’t call for help.
“I said to them, this is not a normal reaction — you need to call a paramedic,” she recounted. Instead, she said, staff members suggested that the children sit down in the shade.
Finally, she said, she reached over to one of the phones and called 911.
The police dispatcher fielded two calls, just seconds apart, one from a parent and one from a pool manager, said Nicole Acker of the Menlo Park Police Department.
Mr. Sheeper said once the staff’s decision was made to call 911, the mother had already called in. But, he said, staff members were not negligent. “We were trying to get a handle on what the issue was.”
Although he believed there was no real problem, he was unable to “defuse the fears” of the parents, and that’s when staff called 911, he said.
