Seven children were rushed to the hospital over Memorial Day weekend after a swim in a San Antonio, Texas pool left them struggling to breathe.
A bystander at the Talise de Culebra neighborhood pool called 911 around 7 p.m. to report that the group of children — aged between 5 and 13 years old — were having trouble breathing, reports News4 San Antonio. After being rushed to Methodist Children’s Hospital, six out of seven were treated with non-life threatening injuries and one was treated for life threatening injuries.
Four of the children were siblings. Their mother, Brittany Zappy, shared more information about the incident on Facebook.
“We do not know exactly what happened yet but we do know that a bunch of kids were in the pool whenever the pool maintenance company came and dumped a bunch of chemicals into the pumps and left...and then all of the kids started choking and were unable to breathe,” she wrote in a post dated June 1.
“Kids were collapsing and unable to walk because they were dizzy and weak,” she says. “They could barely even take a breath in...I thought I was going to lose all of my children."
All four of Zappy’s children were treated with a chlorine reversal agent at the hospital, along with “oxygen therapy to help keep inflammation down and reduce the risks of pulmonary edema” until the following afternoon.
Talise de Culebra HOA president Joe Drewnowski says they’re doing everything possible to get to the bottom of the incident.
"The HOA has decided that we would keep the pool closed until we have a third party available to go out and investigate what had happened and check the equipment to ensure that everything is operational," says Drewnowski. "And that should be taking place within the next two to three days."
This article first appeared in its original format here.
