Child disemboweled by sitting on swimming pool drain. It sounds like a lurid, but phony, tabloid headline. It’s not.

Serious injury, or death, can occur if a suction "lock" occurs when hair or a body part gets trapped in a pool or spa drain.

Many Las Vegas pool owners are failing to take simple steps to keep accidents from happening in their own back yard, industry experts say.

Lakey got stuck when she sat on the drain in a wading pool at a recreation club. The drain cover was not bolted down and playful children had removed it.

Her bottom blocked the drain, causing the pool’s pump to suck her tight to the drainpipe. Even though witnesses shut off the pump, she was severely injured.

An East Coast teen-ager drowned in the spring of 1996 when she entered a hot tub at a post-prom party, and happened to sit on an old, brittle drain cover that gave way with her weight. Witnesses couldn't free her from the pump's powerful suction. By the time someone turned off the pump, the submerged victim was dead.

Such events are rare, but devastating.  Yet they are largely preventable by careful pool maintenance.

"I’ve literally refastened hundreds of spa drain covers," says Art Ellison, who runs American Pool Service, a division of Acidwashers, which Ellison has owned 15 years.

The average homeowner doesn’t know anything about the threat of what pool professionals call drain entrapment, which can occur when a pool or spa drain is missing, broken or of outmoded design, Ellison says.

A "20/20" segment that aired in August 1996 warned of pool entrapments in older pools that weren’t well-maintained.

But new pools also pose problems. Ellison fears that trends toward stronger pool pumps and shallower "play" pools will lead to more entrapments in back yards across the country: "A 70-pound kid that might not get stuck to plumbing 10 years ago is going to get stuck to it now."

Most disheartening to Ellison is when he has drained a pool for repairs and points out to the owner that the drain cover is missing but a new one can easily be installed—and is ignored.

"I’d say about 50-50, they turn me down," Ellison estimates. It costs about $125 to measure, purchase and put in a new cover.

When a pool is empty is also the ideal time to trade an unsafe grate-style drain cover for a so-called "anti-vortex" design, he says.

The latter has holes only around its edges. Unlike a grated cover, an anti-vortex dram cover does not lie flush with the pool bottom but is raised, which makes it less likely that any body part could entirely cover all the holes at once.

But even an anti-vortex dram cover has limited value if it’s not permanently installed, Ellison says. A single swipe of a pool brush can dislodge a cover that’s held into place only by its plastic tabs.

Curious children, too, can easily pop off covers attached this way. "Kids will intentionally rip them off," Ellison warns. "It’s one of their favorite things to do."

	Teach children with long hair never to go into a pool or spa unless they tie up their hair or wear a cap. Warn them to stay away from drains, and why.
	Before allowing a child to swim at a friend’s house, check the pool rules, pool

	At a public or commercial pool—at a motel, for instance, where a lifeguard may not be present—personally check that drains are covered before allowing a child to swim.
	When a guest, find out where the cutoff switch is for a pool or spa pump—or make sure the lifeguards know where the switches are.