7.05.2007

Child Injured in Pool Mishap, the Rest of the Story...

My heart goes out to the family of Abigail Taylor, a 6 year old who has been severly injured due to suction from the open drain of a wading pool:

A 6-year-old girl who sat on an open drain in a wading pool lost part of her intestinal tract to the drain’s powerful suction, her family said.

Abigail Taylor was injured in the wading pool on June 29, according to her family.

Her father, Scott Taylor, said the suction caused a 2-inch tear in Abigail’s rectum and pulled out much of her small intestine. Doctors had to remove the part of her intestines that remained, according to the family’s lawyer, Bob Bennett.

Abigail remained in intensive care at Children’s Hospital on Thursday and appeared to be improving, Bennett said.

She was to undergo surgery on Friday, Bennett said. “She’ll receive her nutrition through a port for the rest of her life,” he said.

Bennett said the swimming pool’s drain hole was improperly uncovered. However, the general manager of the club where the pool is located said he didn’t think anything was wrong with the pool. He referred questions to the attorney for the club’s insurance company, who declined to comment.

Several states have passed pool-safety laws after children drowned or were disemboweled by drain suction. North Carolina, for instance, requires pools to have dual drains to diffuse the force of the suction and prevent children from being trapped.


What is not pointed out in the article, is WHY North Carolina has a law that protects children from this sort of mishap. A law that, had it been replicated in Minnesota, would have saved this girl her suffering and permanant loss to quality of life.

It is because of trial lawyers:

... 1997 product liability lawsuit against Sta-Rite, the manufacturer of a defective pool drain cover. The case involved a three-year-old girl who was disemboweled by the suction power of the pool drain pump when she sat on an open pool drain whose protective cover other children at the pool had removed, after the swim club had failed to install the cover properly. Despite 12 prior suits with similar claims, Sta-Rite continued to make and sell drain covers lacking warnings. Sta-Rite protested that an additional warning would have made no difference because the pool owners already knew the importance of keeping the cover secured.
...
The jury awarded the family $25 million, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history. The company settled for the $25 million while the jury was deliberating additional punitive damages, rather than risk losing an appeal.

As it points out, the manufacturer injured 12 children before taking responsibility - only after having to settle this case for a large amount.

The lawyer that finally held this company liable and protected this from happening to other children in North Carolina...

John Edwards

"I Like Ike!" - Winnebago GOP Denies Bush and Supports Peace?

This week's parades saw the Winnebago Republicans hauling around a mock Ripon Schoolhouse decorated with "I Like Ike" paraphernalia.

(The Oshkosh parade did have a 50's theme...)

However, if they took a look at what Eisenhower stood for, I'm not so sure that today's Republican Party would truly 'Like Ike".

He sounds like he could join Edwards, Richardson, Obama and Clinton running for the Dems nomination:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

I believe that anyone speaking the words above would be deemed immediately anti-American by today's Republican Party.

I don't, however, blame our local Republicans for looking back to better days. I would not want to have to publicly support the actions of today's Republicans.

Paul Esslinger, Contradicting Himself in 24 Hours or Less...

As I have discussed before, Oshkosh City Councilor and (repeatedly failed) Mayoral Candidate Paul Esslinger is very inconsistent in his personal beliefs.

Some may call it opportunism, others flip-flopping or perhaps out-right dishonesty.

Another blatant example of the (non-) rock-solid beliefs of Mr. Esslinger was on public display this week, when in a letter to the editor in Tuesday's Northwestern he lamented the loss of good manufacturing jobs in Oshkosh.

This was followed up by his parade appearance Wednesday morning.

Riding in the back of a Toyota...

Jessica McBride: "Poor people do not deserve healthcare."

Here is the money quote from her opinion piece on the Senate health plan:

(Healthy WI) ...would give everyone in the state health care like that enjoyed by the legislators and the governor. Why should a $7-an-hour worker get benefits the same as the governor?


Tell me if there is a different way to interpret that statement?

Thank you, Jessica, for the clear window into the Republican soul (or lack thereof...).