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Injured Girl's Father and Sen. Klobuchar Highlight the Nation's New Swimming Pool Safety Law

December 20, 2007

Minneapolis, MN– To highlight the nation’s new pool safety legislation signed into law this week, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar was joined at a news conference today by Scott Taylor, the father of a Twin Cities girl who was severely injured in a swimming pool accident last summer.
 
Last summer, six-year-old Abigail (Abbey) Taylor, of Edina, was severely injured at a wading pool in St. Louis Park when she sat over an open drain hole where the cover had apparently come loose or been removed.  The drain’s powerful suction force tore out most of her small intestine. 

Taylor provided an update on his daughter, who this week underwent transplant surgery for a new liver, pancreas and small intestine.

Klobuchar described Abbey as “an amazing child whose courage has inspired an important change in the laws of our country that will help protect children in the future.  Abbey may be a small girl, but she has already had a super-sized impact.”

Klobuchar credited Abbey and her family for their advocacy in gaining passage of the new law, which bans the manufacture, sale or distribution of swimming pool drain covers that do not meet anti-entrapment safety standards.  The legislation includes two key amendments authored by Klobuchar: 

1)      A requirement that the safety standards apply to both new and existing public pools (including hotels, fitness clubs, apartment complexes and other pools serving multiple users); and

2)     A requirement that public pools have automatic suction shut-offs to eliminate the risk of injury or death from drain entrapment. 

Pool operators will have one year to comply with these new standards and safeguards.  The legislation originated in the Senate Commerce Committee, on which Klobuchar serves.

“This is a basic matter of public safety, consumer safety and child safety,” said Klobuchar.  “Parents should not have to worry that their children will be in danger when they go to the local swimming pool.”

The legislation is named the “Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act” in memory of the seven-year-old granddaughter of former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.  Five years ago, she drowned in a hot tub at a graduation party when the drain’s powerful suction trapped her underwater.  It took two adults to pry her body free from the drain.

In 2005, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a report saying that, since 1990, at least 130 people (mostly children) have been entrapped by the suction force of pool and spa drains, resulting in 27 deaths and many more emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
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