Manager, pool cleaner found guilty of jacuzzi accident

Dubai: A pool cleaner and a manager have been fined Dh50,000 each after a court held them accountable for a seven-year-old boy’s injury after drowning in a jacuzzi and suffering a brain dysfunction.

The seven-year-old Emirati boy was in the rooftop pool area with his dad and sister at the residential tower where they live in Business Bay area in September.

The father took his children up to the poolside to spend some time when he saw his son falling into the jacuzzi tub at 6.30pm.

The father rushed to rescue his son, whose hand had got stuck in the outlet drain in the bottom of the jacuzzi tub.

The dad tried to pull his son out of the 90cm-deep tub, but he was totally immersed in the water as the pressure of the outlet drain was sucking him and pulling his body under the water.

Failing to pull him out of the jacuzzi on his own, the father had to seek the assistance of his neighbours or the tower’s security guards.

The petrified father saw two neighbours who rushed to help him pull his drowning boy out of the tub.

A Jordanian neighbour curled his arm around the boy’s arm and freed him, while a Lebanese neighbour performed CPR on the child in an attempt to resuscitate him.

The boy was taken to hospital where medical reports confirmed that he suffered severe and diffuse cerebral and brainstem dysfunction.

The Dubai Misdemeanours Court convicted the Indian cleaner and his countryman manager of being liable for the boy’s injury.

The court fined the defendant Dh50,000 each for failing to apply the required and standard precautionary measures in and around the jacuzzi tub and failing to post proper warning signs around the poolside.

According to the court judgement, the defendants were also found accountable for failing to apply proper and routine maintenance works to fix the tub’s outlet drain that had been the cause of the drowning.

The accused also failed to fix a switch near the jacuzzi tub for emergencies to disconnect electricity supply.

The defendants, who had pleaded not guilty, appealed their primary judgements before the Appeal Court that convenes soon.

When questioned by the police, the pool cleaner said the last time he examined the tub, he discovered that the outlet drain was not functioning.

He claimed that he told the maintenance company that the outlet drain needed to be fixed but did not recommend, in his report that the tub needed to be shut down.

Meanwhile, the father told the police that his neighbours saved his child and that there was no lifeguard present at the time of the accident. He said the poolside area did not have warning signs or instructions for users.