ROUGH CUT: Ethan Gregory was just one child left with bleeding and sore feet after they were cut on the rough surface of the children's pool. Photo: JUDE KEOGH 0928pool3
A SYDNEY resident, visiting Orange to catch up with family over the school holidays, has vowed not to return to the Orange Aquatic Centre after the rough surface of the children’s pool base left her five-year-old son’s feet cut and bleeding.
Lesley Kelly, said she’d heard about the new pool and her son Ethan was very excited to try it out on Wednesday.
“He was in the children’s pool playing with his cousin, and when they got out both of them had bleeding feet,” Ms Kelly said.
“They had pretty bad cuts on the bottom and top of their feet.
Ms Kelly said she was really disappointed that the incident happened at a new pool.
“Surely the designers or builders have built a pool before, I can’t see how this could have happened,” she said.
“I won’t be taking him back until I know it’s fixed.”
Council spokesman Allan Reeder said the cuts were caused by the non-slip surface of the children’s leisure pool and parts of the base will be ground down to fix the problem.
“The base needs to be painted with a non-slip surface to make it grip on toes but it leads to cuts as the skins gets soft in the water,” he said.
“We’ve got ideas from the [surface’s] manufacturer of how to grind it off and that’s happening soon.”
“It’s just teething problems.”
Ms Kelly said over the past few days she’d been forced to treat her son’s feet with antiseptic creams and Band-Aides to heal the sores.
“Ethan really enjoyed himself at the pool, it’s a great facility but we didn’t expect him to be left hobbling around complaining of sore feet,” she said.
“You can’t tell me staff didn’t know about it, surely the pool was tested out before people were allowed to swim there.
“We can’t be the only ones who have been injured there.”
Mr Reeder said the pool will not have to be drained when work to fix the surface starts next week.
If the fix fails council will look at other options.
Mr Reeder said software for the swipe cards used for season pass holders is also yet to be installed.
clare.colley@ruralpress.com
