Can a swimming pool drain disembowel you?
Robert Miller
Published Feb 09, 2026
Can a swimming pool drain disembowel you?
Pool suction drain injury, also known as suction entrapment, occurs when the drain of a wading pool or swimming pool suck in a swimmer’s jewelry, torso, limbs, hair or buttocks. Evisceration, also known as disembowelment, could happen in case of buttock entrapment.
Can your guts get sucked out?
It’s highly unlikely. You would never seal well enough and the suction is not sufficient. On the ground up to a certain altitude a vacuum pump provides a small pressure differential to remove water and waste to a holding tank.
How did Salma lose her intestines?
Salma Bashir, then five, was on holiday with her family in Alexandria, Egypt, when she accidentally sat on a pool’s suction valve. The force was so strong that it ripped her small intestines from her body before anyone had a chance to pull her away.
Can you sit on a pool drain?
Make Sure Your Drain is Compliant The VGBA requires that all pools and spas be fitted with “anti-entrapment drain covers.” Unlike the flat pool drains of old, these new models use a curved design, which makes it much more difficult to become trapped if you lean against it or sit on it.
Can pool drain suck out intestines?
Abigail, of Edina, was injured June 29 when she sat on a wading pool drain at the Minneapolis Golf Club in St. Louis Park and its powerful suction ripped out part of her intestinal tract. She underwent transplant surgery at the Nebraska hospital to receive a new small bowel, liver and pancreas.
Can pool drains pull your organs out?
A 6-year-old girl whose intestines were partially sucked out by a swimming pool drain, leading to tougher safety legislation, has died, her family’s attorney said Friday. She suffered setbacks, including a cancerous condition sometimes triggered by organ transplants, family attorney Bob Bennett said.
How many miles of intestines do we have?
Research suggests that the combined length of the small and large intestines is at least 15 ft in length. The small intestine can measure about 9–16 ft, while the large intestine is roughly 5 ft long. The intestines have the important role of helping break down and absorb nutrients from food and drink.
Why are intestines so long?
Minerals and nutrients from food. And the length of the small intestine allows as much of these important substances to be absorbed as possible. The small intestine is a narrow tube about 7 meters (23 feet) long in adults. It is the site of most chemical digestion and virtually all absorption.
Has someone died from a pool drain?
In one horrific instance, four adult men were unable to pull a young girl from the grasp of a deadly drain. Swimmers can die from drowning or evisceration. From 1999 to 2008, according to CPSC data, there were 83 reports of suction entrapment, including 11 deaths and 69 injuries.
Are your intestines really a mile long?
In humans, the small intestine is about 6 meters or 20 feet long and the large intestine is about 1.5 meters or 5 feet long.
Can you poop out an intestine?
Rectal prolapse occurs when part or all of the rectum slides out of place and sticks out of the anus, turning the rectum inside out. The rectum is the final section of the large intestine before the anus (the opening through which stool passes out of the body).