Pool barrier where Cape siblings drowned fails inspection — again

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CAPE CORAL, Fla. A pool barrier at a condominium complex where two children drowned last week failed another city inspection Monday.

The barrier failed an initial inspection when it was erected Friday. The city ordered property representatives at the condominiums on the 1000 block of Southwest 47th Terrace to install the barrier, which wasn’t present the night of May 15, when a 3-year-old boy and 1-year-old girl drowned.

The pool’s previous barrier had been removed in January and was never replaced.

The original fence had a manual gate, but the ultimate goal is to have a self-locking gate system with poles placed permanently in the ground, according to officials from the Baby Barrier Pool Fence Company, who were at the complex Sunday.

WINK News reporter Kristin Sanchez went live via Facebook from the condominium complex, where a makeshift memorial has been put up for the drowning victims.

The drowning case will go before the Child Death Review Board for Florida’s 20th Judicial Circuit, a group that reviews and assesses child deaths in Lee, Collier, Hendry and Glades counties.

It’ll be a while before the board gets to the case — it still has 19 cases from 2016 to sort through. There have been 10 child deaths in Southwest Florida thus far in 2017. Last year, there were 28.

The board consists of experts in the field of dealing with child deaths, including the Department of Children and Families, which wasn’t represented at the board’s meeting Monday due to other commitments.

 

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