Furious with local swimming pool

[Ieatcake]

Very large pool, power cut in the middle of children's lessons. The rest of the building had emergency lights that kicked in a second later apart from the pool. Dozens of parents rushing from the mezzanine level and using their phones to check on the children. Staff took several minutes to locate a few dim torches and didn't have a. Clear evaction plan.

Aibu to think that just isn't acceptable? The gym, reception, studio changing rooms all had emergency lights but not the pool and it was pitch black. Will they have broken the law? A mad adrenaline rush for everyone!

I agree that this isn't on. Drowning is usually silent so no amount of teachers and lifeguards would be of any use in the dark.

That must have been terrifying for both the children in the pitch black water and for parents trying to find them. A 6 year old would have been so scared, especially as I imagine there was a lot of noise and shouting, crying, screaming even?

Not acceptable one tiny bit. That was a seriously dangerous situation which they need to rectify immediately

Most of the emergency lighting we have in our community centre runs on individual batteries to back up so if one unit fails, only one unit fails, the others still work. This is quite common.

I would have been terrified if my dd was in that pool. You should lodge an official complaint via the council I guess.

I'm pretty sure they will have emergency lighting

It sounds like it failed though.

Op...totally agree with you. Im a poor swimming, losing the light would panic me...same with children. They must be better lighting sorted in case of this happening again

• With ds1 particularly he would make a beeline for the deep side of the pool if he thought I wasn't looking. He played independently in the two foot deep baby pool, sometimes quite a few feet away from me and equal distance to the deep side...which is fine as I obviously watched like a hawk.

I would never have thought about a complete black out though. The thought of that happening when you have a young child in the pool and probably a load of panicking screaming other kids around actually makes me feel sick. There could be a real risk of a horrible accident for a younger one.*

Totally agree with this. My DS is the same - trying to teach him pool safety which involves taking him to a pool and he obviously cannot swim. If there was a power cut and he wasn't in my arms at that moment.... the thought of that is terrifying

bloody hell sounds shockingly poor to me! kids scrambling in the dark to get out of a pool?! disaster.

It takes one person to panic.
I would panic if I was in the pool and it suddenly went pitch black and I'm a very confident swimmer.
I would be very panicked if my child was in the pool- a place that could very easily kill them- and it went pitch black. What if another panicked child knocked another child back into the pool and they hit their head? What if someone slipped? What if, what if, what if... all very valid concerns.

OP I would write to your local pool and express your concerns. Usually I think people need to just get on in life but this is a very serious accident waiting to happen

*tell the kids calmly to go to the side" was one of the dafter suggestions on this thread. How are they supposed to find their way to the side in the pitch black, not to mention also being disoriented from a sudden power cut.

YANBU OP - I would be wanting some answers from the pool as to what happened and how they will prevent the same panic happening again.

I don't see how you can possibly be unreasonable. Very dangerous but something that could potentially happen at any time so there should be a clear plan in the event of losing the lighting. I would write to them to find out what they plan to do if this happened again.

Thanks all for the later comments, will definitely be writing to several places tonight. I think I need to in order to calm down a bit. I know it was all over quickly but something could have happened.

I don't know they didn't have pool lighting, all I know is the rest of the building had lighting apart from the pool. If it did have emergency lighting it's pretty unacceptable that it was all on one unit and failed. Just one or two lights would have made a huge difference.

Lifeguards and swim teachers should know the evacuation plan and each teacher should check they have everyone in their class. Probably not made easier by a surge of worried parents.

Yes the lights should have worked but the key question for me is how quickly the children were counted in and any absences identified.

I live in a big City and have been in literally dozens and dozens of public pools in my lifetime, from those that were 100 years old to those that have been newly opened. I can't think of a single pool that doesn't h ave natural light. Seems odd for it to be 'pitch black' even if the lights go off.
Also seems odd that the rest of the building has a back up system and there weren't any in the pool area if they are needed.
However, fuming is an over reaction yes.
Should you follow it up with a letter or e-mail asking what they are going to do to rectify the situation ? Yes.

If it did have emergency lighting it's pretty unacceptable that it was all on one unit and failed. Just one or two lights would have made a huge difference.

No, it won't have been on the one unit.

But I'm sure they'll look into why/if it failed.

I work for a council run site and ours has to be checked weekly and logged in a book. They'll no doubt check that was done properly etc.

The few skylights were just flooding the place with natural light at nearly 6pm in January

Well we will see Worral, I don't think you can just assume things are done right when you have tragedies such as grenfell where people's high rise home was transformed into a tinder box

Exactly OP. It definitely needs looking into.

Our emergency lighting had a problem that took the council 3 weeks to get around to fixing.

Although, it wouldn't really have put anyone in a dangerous situation but it was still unacceptable.

Yes, that's bad, no question. Perhaps they should permanently keep a flashlight under the lifeguard's chair.

Back for good, even if the pool had been a glass house I doubt there was much natural light at night! The op has stated repeatedly the pool was pitch black (which required torches). I don’t think fuming is an overreaction when your child has been put in a situation which could very very easily have been fatal!

I think this is terrible. Not an overreaction at all, and measures need to be put into place to stop it happening again!

• Tue 16-Jan-18 21:25:55 Brimfire, the term snowflake shouldn’t be applied to anyone who is treating water with the respect and caution it deserves. Most drownings go unnoticed because the body basically can’t phyically do anything, there’s no splashing or crying out, generally people will just slip under and you will only notice something is wrong if you can see the fear in their eyes or the stillness with which they go under the water. If you had ever dived in the dark you would know how disorientating it can be even with some light, once under the water you have no idea which is up or down. I’m horrified at this post. I would immediately find a different swim school and question their procedures in emergencies. For those who think this is an overreaction please please educate yourselves about the danger of water.

Yeah thanks for the patronising tone. I was referring to the word snowflake as being perfect for those described as them. In response to people saying the term was boring and dismissive. In general. Hence following it up with dark pools being dangerous.

Where I live, the pool is deep underground hence no natural light whatsoever. I would very much hope that if this happened here, there'd be some kind of emergency lighting to stop children panicking and drowning.

Very poor. Please complain OP.

I used to swim 3 times a week in my early teens and there were a couple of power cuts in the middle of lessons. Even as an older child, a strong swimmer and knowing the pool inside out, it was a scary experience.

Yep it will need looking into, somethings not right somewhere.

Trust me it was ptich black, maybe if you had time to stand in there for 10 minutes your eyes would get used to it and the small amount of light thrown from the changing rooms and gym would have helped you see. But to go from bright lights to darkness you could see nothing much.