When the order to get out of the water comes mid-swim, chances are someone pooped in the pool.
“Contamination of a pool can be through any sort of bodily fluids, vomit, urine, blood, fecal incidents,” said Dr. Vivien Suttorp with Alberta Health Services. “The most concerning are the fecal incidents and the nature of the organisms that can be contained in poop.
“Poop can contain viruses, bacteria and parasites.”
She added the fallout from a contamination can be very serious.
“One particular illness we worry about with pools is Cryptosporidium. Crypto can cause a really watery diarrhea and can sometimes last for 30 days. There are even deaths due to Cryptosporidium.”
It’s an illness pool operator Brad Pack with Recreation Excellence takes very seriously.
“If we have a Crypto outbreak in a pool, the pool can be closed three weeks or a month,” Pack said.
He added other communities that have dealt with the same illness have had to do extensive cleanup including draining the pool and cleaning filters, and if that happened at Henderson Pool, it could shut the facility down for the summer.
Since June 13, there have been three major closures at Henderson Pool due to contamination, requiring closure for more than an hour.
There have also been nine short closures of less than an hour. Out of all the closures, AHS says, nine have been due to fecal contamination.
“The inconvenience to all the paying customers that come to the pool,” added Pack, “because they have to get out and essentially wait or go home, then we have the lost revenue if it’s a 24-hour closure.”
AHS has a few tips for pool users:
- If you plan to have a picnic at the pool, swim first and eat after swimming. Wait at least 45 minutes after eating to return to the pool.
- Do not swallow the pool water.
- Rinse off in the shower — preferably with soap — before getting into the water. Whatever is on your body will be going into the pool with you.
- Children that are not toilet trained must wear pool swim diapers which are snug around the legs and waist, along with a pair of snug plastic swim pants over top.
- Take kids on frequent bathroom breaks and only check diapers in a diaper-changing area — not right next to the pool.
- Those who are incontinent must wear swim pants which are snug around the legs and waist, along with a pair of snug plastic swim pants over top.
- Don’t go swimming or let your kids swim if sick with diarrhea.
“If you have diarrhea, do not enter a pool. Do not enter a pool if you’ve had diarrhea in the past two weeks. In the past two weeks, some people, the Crypto organism is still within people’s fecal material, even if they don’t have symptoms anymore,” added Suttorp.
Even though vomit does not carry the same germs, there is a clean-up protocol for that as well. If you are at a pool and see something that doesn’t belong, report it as soon as possible so clean-up protocols can begin right away.
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