A family in North Carolina is suing Caribbean Resort & Villas in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, alleging that their 3-year-old son got chemical burns during their stay. The family’s lawyer said the hotel pool's chlorine levels were tested and measured higher than the limit set by South Carolina law, according to WCTI 12. The 3-year-old boy's family alleges he has permanent scarring resulting from the chlorine levels in the pool and had to spend a week at a burn center. The family’s lawsuit against the Myrtle Beach hotel is scheduled to go to trial later this year.
Chemical burns related to chlorine levels in pools have harmed a number of people in the US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there were 13,508 emergency hospital visits for pool chemical-related injuries from 2015 to 2017.
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The hotel pool’s chlorine levels were well above the required limit, the family’s lawyer claims.
The attorney for the family with the child, now 6 years old, alleges the boy is still being treated for burns he sustained at the Caribbean Resort & Villas pool, per WCTI 12. “The biggest thing is how much he suffered as the chemicals ate away at his skin,” lawyer Kenneth Berger said, according to the news outlet.
The boy was initially treated for seven days at the University of North Carolina Burn Center following the incident, where he underwent several sessions of debridement (medical removal of damaged tissue to help remaining tissue heal), WCTI 12 reported. The family's lawyer also stated that the resort's chlorine levels were tested and were above the required limit.
A hotel employee allegedly falsified records and documents.
The lawsuit alleges a certain hotel employee, Juan Rivera, was responsible for maintaining the pool's chlorine levels but was not on duty when the little boy and his family were in the lazy river at the resort, per WCTI 12. Berger said, “So, Juan wasn’t actually working on May 25th. What he did was when he came back to work a couple of days later, he went back and falsified and forged what the chlorine and other chemical levels were in that pool."
The Department of Health and Environmental Control, or DHEC, tested the chlorine levels when the boy started having problems and Berger said South Carolina requires chlorine levels do not go over eight but the resort measured at a 10, the news outlet reported. Warrant records also showed DHEC charged Rivera with forging records.
Chlorine and chemical burns can cause severe harm and damage.
According to the CDC, chlorine can cause inflammation, burning pain, and blisters to the skin. Chlorine is also one of the 10 most mass-produced chemicals in the US, the agency notes. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has a standard for chlorine called IDLH, immediately dangerous to life or health, which is 10 ppm for Chlorine, the CDC states.
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Many agree the hotel employee was responsible for the accident.
Readers of the Yahoo! News article covering the story were in agreement that the hotel employee responsible for the chlorine levels at the resort should carry the blame for what happened.
“I wonder who was maintaining it?" one person commented. "i took a Pool class on how to take Care of pools. i had a water test Kit to check what the Pool needs. Someone didnt check the Chlorine Levels which you have to check. the Acid levels too.”
“This was negligence, how irresponsible of Juan Rivera, Not River, was to falsified records," someone else wrote. "Hope is charged, my heart goes out to the child.”
Someone else wrote, “wow how stupid to falsify records after the fact.”
Rivera was booked into the J. Reuben Long Detention Center in March of this year for forgery, per Yahoo! News. He was released after paying a $500 bond, according to WTBW.
