FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) - Several children got sick after an incident with pool chemicals at the La Quinta Inn & Suites along 46th St. on Sunday, May 28.
The accident took place in the pump room. Pool Pump
Grant Larson, Director of Environmental Health at Fargo Cass Public Health said this was an odd occurrence.
“I’ve been here 25 years and this is the first time it has happened,” Larson said.
Two chemicals, a muriatic acid used to balance the PH levels in the pool and chlorine, which is used to disinfect the water, accidently got mixed together in a small spill, which produced an off gas that affected some swimmers.
Larson said it was truthfully a “freak accident.”
“We really call it like a ‘freak’ kind of thing where they were replacing one bucket because one was getting kind of low, and some spilled on to the other bucket,” Larson said.
Larson said this is a rare situation as technicians do lots of training to avoid situations like this.
“They’re taught on that handling, you know, they have consultants that teach them, ‘Don’t mix with that, and make sure this doesn’t get close,’ so it was just a rare, unfortunate incident that occurred,” Larson said.
While many parents assume that the water is safe, and in this instance the water itself was, Larson said there are ways for parents to check chemical levels on their own to ensure their child’s safety.
“There’s test kits online for $5 up to the sky’s limit as far as cost, so the parents would just have to educate themselves on how to use that,” Larson said,
As of now the pool in the hotel is back up and fully operating again.
Valley News Live did reach out to the hotel for a statement, and was told that if they had one to release, VNL would get it at a later date.
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