In Fridays Joplin Globe there was an article that caught my attention “Swimmin Hole owner loses liability insurance, hopes to reopen next year”.
The story is about a local water park that was forced to obtain liability insurance for the park due to a new state law requiring one million dollars in liability coverage for water parks in the state of Missouri. The new law called “Ethan's Law” came from the accidental drowning of a six year old boy at the Swimmin Hole.
As the story title states the Swimmin Hole owner has lost his insurance coverage do to what he calls “two small accidents”. Now I am biased about this story due to my knowledge of some things. So with that said this story caught my attention not because of what the writer put down but how readers responded in the comments. It seems to me that some of the comments left by a few readers of the Joplin Globe are a little out of touch.
Accidents happen writes:
“If I was the Burt's, I wouldn't allow Lauren Cory or her family anywhere near that waterpark! Heaven forbid one of them might fall and injure something and have cause for a whole new lawsuit. It's a shame she pushed and got an emotional law passed about having a million dollars worth of insurance. Obviously they need insurance, but to put that high of a dollar amount is unreasonable. It's like putting a dollar amount on a family members life if some accident should happen. Accidents are just that, something unintended to happen. We are in such a sue happy world which enables ambulance chasers to earn big bucks representing people in lawsuits. I still have to wonder why some of this didn't begin at home before the child left on the outing. Knowing he was going to a swimming park, why didn't the parents provide a life jacket he could have worn? The ball was dropped by a lot of people that day. The parents, the boys and girls club for lack of enough supervision and lastly the water park needing more personnel. That's what made this an ACCIDENT.”
From my understanding of this “emotional” law it affects the safety of children and adults by the old saying stuff rolls down hill. To obtain one million dollars in coverage the insurer is going to require that the water parks implement safety standards and adhere to them. If the parks do not and continue to have accidents they will be dropped. This helps to insure parks are ran and built safely. I don’t know about you but if it was my million bucks I would make sure it was safe.
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I can agree with you to one point that the blame should be spread out, between the club and parents, but the story lost my bias opinion when the swimming holes owner stated that, "two small accidents," whatever, accidents yes but don't blow off life. My thoughts is if your going to run such a facility as a water park then you expect there will be accidents, with accidents comes insurance to cover the assets of the existing place. As a mother and a grandmother I agree this child should of not left without a life jacket, and the club should of been more on top of their children but as a park ran with water...hello...you expect accidents. You should have plenty of insurance. I do not feel sorry for the park, I do feel sorry for the families and their loss.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree to some extent there are a lot of people to blame, the parents should of sent the life jacket. But, on the same not why would you trust a club to let your little one go swimming. My kids are only allowed to go with family, such as grandparents. Not some club that will have too many kids and not enough supervision. As for that law I like the fact that these water parks have to carry a large amount of insurance. If that would of been my child there would not be an amount high enough to cover their lives. But as I said earlier there is enough blame to spread around....
ReplyDeleteI agree, everyone in this story is liable to a point. As a parent, I would not have allowed my child, especially that young of a child, to go to a park without a family member who is going to be responsible. I would never put that responsibility in the hands of strangers.
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