CAUTION: NOT for those with a WEAK stomach!!!!!!!!

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Laenini

Laenini

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LifeTime Supporter
Aug 7, 2008
115
Brooklyn Park, MN
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and with all the bad luck we've had with our second pool (just installed last month) it was inevitable that there were more "learning experiences" ahead for us with this new pool. I just really could have done without this learning experience I'm about to describe. :cry:

This weekend we had a young child vomit in the pool. :blah: It was a significant amount, enough that some of it pooled on the bottom of the pool and the rest dispersed over the surface. I used basic principles that I have learned here to clean up the mess, but I wanted to check in and make sure no one else had any advice to offer. Here are the steps I took:

  • *We attended to the ill child and took care of his needs.
    *We asked the other swimmers to please exit the pool and closed the pool for the evening
    *I resisted the urge to drain the pool and scrub the whole thing down with Comit and steel wool :wink:
    *Instead I checked the FC level (it was 4) and added bleach to bring the pool up to shock level (I aimed for 12)
    *I attached my automatic vacuum to clean the bottom of the pool
    *I used my leaf net to skim the yuckies off of the surface of the water

The pool looked fine today, no trace of the icky stuff. I kept it closed anyway due rainy weather here today, but plan to open if all is well tomorrow. But before I reopen, I assume I should check and balance all chemical parameters, backwash the filter, and specifically check for CC's. If it all checks out, am I ok to reopen? Or is there something more I should do? Advice is appreciated.

Thanks!
Leanne
 
I was once told by a nurse that there is very little "bad Stuff" (pathogens, etc) in vomit. She said it is mostly gastric acid, bile (aids in digestion), undigested food. It may look disgusting but is mostly harmless. This doen not mean you should swim in it and by all means keep the sanitizers going but if someone pee's in the pool I would suspect there is more bad stuff going in
 
danpik said:
I was once told by a nurse that there is very little "bad Stuff" (pathogens, etc) in vomit. She said it is mostly gastric acid, bile (aids in digestion), undigested food. It may look disgusting but is mostly harmless. This doen not mean you should swim in it and by all means keep the sanitizers going but if someone pee's in the pool I would suspect there is more bad stuff going in
Click to expand...
It depends. In a *healthy* person, there should be no pathogens in the vomit. As a side note, a healthy person's pee is sterile, so there is really little infection issue, just nitrogen/urea/cc.

But that is for healthy folks, and if a kid is barfing, he may not be healthy, thus there may be something germy in the barf. Regardless, chlorine is the answer, and you're doing exactly what you need to do. Chlorinate, chlorinate, chlorinate. If you pass an OCLT, you are good.
 

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Well, the pool looks fine and at 48 hours after the "incident" I have found no CC's present in any of my tests. So we did go ahead and open the pool tonight. Thanks for all of the reassuring advice! I'm sure this is all more psychologically distressing than it is physically risky. I am glad though that I have you all to fall back on for advice!
 
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