Thousands Hit Emergency Rooms Due to Injuries From Pool Chemicals

Thousands arrive at emergency rooms due to injuries caused by chemicals from pools, a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims.

According to the latest report, nearly 5000 emergency rooms visits were made in 2012 due to injuries that occurred from pool chemicals. Nearly 50 percent of these preventable injuries were seen in children and teenagers and over a third of these injuries occurred at home. 

It was reported that most of the pool chemical injuries occurred during the summer swim season, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and half of them took place over the weekends.

"Chemicals are added to the water in pools to stop germs from spreading. But they need to be handled and stored safely to avoid serious injuries," Michele Hlavsa, chief of CDC's Healthy Swimming Program, said in a statement.

The federal authorities provided simple and effective steps that residential pool owners and public pool operators can follow to prevent the pool chemical injuries. A few of these tips include wearing proper safety equipments that include masks and goggles as directed when handling pool chemicals, never mix pool chemicals especially chlorine products with acid, follow instructions on product labels, not allowing children to handle chemicals, by pre-dissolving pool chemicals only when directed by the product label. Above all make sure to mix pool chemical to water and not water to pool chemicals.

For this study, data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commision's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System was analyzed.  NEISS captures data on injuries related to consumer products from 100 hospital emergency departments nationwide. 

Chlorine and bromine do not kill the germs instantly when added to the pool water. Therefore it is necessary that everyone helps keep germs out of water by not swimming when down with diarrhoea and taking kids on bathroom breaks.