Pool care do-it-yourselfers may be thinking of hiring professional pool service after they were sent to the hospital for chemical exposure.
In unrelated incidents that occurred this May, household members mixing incompatible pool chemicals were injured by the reactions that followed.
The first incident took place on May 11 in a Madison County, Kentucky, home and put a family of five in the hospital.
The family had been mixing pool cleaning chemicals in their home when an unexpected (to them) reaction took place, filling the house with toxic fumes.
According to 8-year-old Tatum Campbell, who was in the room where the chemicals were being mixed, it was difficult to breathe, she couldn’t move, and her whole body was aching.
The girl’s mother, Melissa Campbell, told LEX18 News that her husband was hospitalized with chemical burns and was still on oxygen as of the following morning but was expected to be released in the next few days.
The chemicals were identified only as chlorine tablets and a liquid pool cleaner.
“It's pool chemicals we use every day in our pool, and we never have any issue with it,” Melissa Campbell said.
Returning home, she said the whole house smelled like a swimming pool.
Two weeks later in a Conway, Pennsylvania, home, two people were injured while mixing pool chemicals in their kitchen.
Both received chemicals burns on their faces in the explosion that followed.
The chemicals mixed were not identified.
One of the victims was flown to the hospital for burns while the other was treated at the scene by medics.
No report was given as to the status of the hospitalized victim.