Charlie Smith
ONE of Spain’s top swimming pool engineers has called the deaths of an American-British family ‘an accident waiting to happen’.
It comes as nine-year-old British girl Comfort Diya, her American brother, Praise-Emmanuel Diya, 16, and father, Gabriel, 52, drowned on Christmas Eve.
It is suspected that the pumping system in the pool at the Club La Costa Resort in Fuengirola played a part in the deaths although no official source has confirmed this yet.
As the investigation into the deaths continues, Tony Reddin, 60, who is a member of the Institute of Swimming Pool Engineers, has spoken of the danger of swimming pools.
“Swimming pools are dangerous machines,” the British expat of 30 years told the Olive Press.
“A normal swimming pool will have a one to one-and-a-half horsepower pump.
“But these bigger pools at hotels and urbanizations, like the one at Club La Costa, tend to have bigger pumps, up to three, four and five horsepower.
“I get a feeling of déjà vu about this, it was an accident waiting to happen.
“At theme parks rides have a big red button to stop them in an emergency and that’s what swimming pools should have on the poolside.
“They’re serious bits of kit, especially if your hair goes down the pool drain.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful, there are lots of swimming pools on urbanisations just like this
“The buck stops with the authorities in Spain, government should introduce new laws.
“People shouldn’t be allowed in unless their hair is tied back.
“The Spanish authorities don’t want this to affect tourism, and I feel like we’re not getting all the information.”
The tragedy comes just months after a British girl almost lost her life after she was sucked into the pump of a swimming pool on the Costa del Sol.
In August, Zara Clarkson, six, from Manchester was left hospitalised when arm was trapped for three hours in a pool pump at the Villas de Santa Maria urbanization.
Tony said: “It’s like what happened to little Zara.
“It beggars belief how three people have died, unless there was a problem with the pumps.
“If Zara had been in the deepest part of the pool like these three people, she would have been dead.
“That’s where the main drain is, at the deepest part of the pool, and I think that’s what the problem was at Club La Costa.”
Tony is also a member of the Swimming Pool and Allied Trades Association (SPATA).
