Story Archive

Swimming Sports II

Two city health inspectors in Fall River, Mass., checked out a state-run public pool, which had already opened for the summer. They declared the water “cloudy” but renewed the pool’s permit to operate. Two days later, pool operators found the body of Marie Joseph, 36, in the water; the woman had drowned before the inspectors arrived. A boy had reported to lifeguards that the woman, whom he knew, had been floundering in the water, but they ignored him. “The water got murkier and murkier” after that, said a spokesman for the Bristol district attorney’s office, which is investigating. “I want to reassure the public that, as disturbing as it is to think about being in the pool [with a dead body], there are really no health risks associated with that,” said Lauren Smith, medical director for the state Department of Public Health. But local kids were not reassured. Dennishia Bates, 13, who swam in the pool when the body was there, demands that the pool be drained. “I want to know what else is down there,” she said. (RC/Boston Globe) ...No, you don’t.