Posted on 06/17/2004 5:00:19 PM PDT by blam
Texas Pool May Have Pulled 4 Victims Down
Friday June 18, 2004 12:46 AM
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - With their hotel pool closed for cleaning and the Texas heat reaching nearly 90 degrees, Myron Dukes took his two children and another child to check out the fountains and pools at the park across the street.
Within minutes, all four drowned in a swirling, decorative pool posted with no-swimming signs. Authorities said powerful suction apparently pulled the victims to the bottom of the 9-foot pool at the Fort Worth Water Gardens.
Witness accounts of the accident varied, but 8-year-old Lauren Dukes apparently jumped or slipped into the water. Her 11-year-old friend, Juantrice Deadmon, tried to reach in and help her but fell in herself. Myron Dukes, 39, and his son, 13-year-old Christopher Dukes, then jumped in to try to save the girls.
The victims were among 120 members of a Baptist Church in Chicago attending a national Sunday school convention. About 2,000 of the convention attendees gathered Thursday morning for a prayer vigil.
``Today our city extends our wings to enfold and comfort you,'' Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief told the crowd, many of whom held hands and wiped away tears. ``We are very, very sorry about your loss.''
Though the Water Gardens are not meant for swimming, residents say people often wade in the pools on hot days.
In the pool where the four drowned, water comes down several irregularly spaced steps, creating waterfalls that empty into the pool. The water there is recirculated through a drain at the bottom of the pool.
Officials did not know whether the suction was created by the drain or the water coming down. Police officer Tony Moldanado, one of the first rescuers at the scene, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that when he jumped in, the suction ``literally sucked the socks off my feet.''
The youngsters went to the water gardens to cool off after marching in a parade at the convention and practicing their drill team routines.
``(Dukes) said he would take them to the falls, just to put their feet in the water,'' said Cleo Deadmon, Juantrice's grandmother. ``I had no idea that it went down that deep.''
Officials said the Water Gardens, which were drained Wednesday night, would remain closed until police finish their investigation.
There's usually a reason for signs like that. Won't prevent the lawsuits, though, I imagine.
Prayers for the families.
Darwin Rules!!
I remember seeing this place when I worked in downtown FW for a year.
Isn't this the same place that parts of Logan's Run was filmed?
sign said no swimming and it sounds like they complied
uh-huh :o)
Never-the-less, I'm sure lawyers have been calling non-stop.
I'm a kayaker, and the shape and concentration of those waterfalls at the bottom of the picture screams "KEEPER HYDRAULIC!"
Perhaps reading the article more closely would help. It appears that the 3 other people drowned as a result of trying to save the 8 year old.
Yeah, no kidding!. I remember visiting as a little kid and being scared witless. It's been there for over 30 years now and never has anything happened like this.
Wow...if they couldn't read the No Swimming signs, common sense would dictate that you stay the heck out of that death trap!
I'm surprised that nobody has drowned there before. It should probably be watched and guarded by a "responsible" person to keep idiots from killing themselves there. It should probably be fenced and closed at night. It's a great work of art.
Right there beside them, did you read the article?
This happens all of the time in Memphis, Tennessee, where miniature homeys go swimming in pools without lifeguards. After one drowns then the family gets lawyers and sue the organization for not having 24 hour round the clock armed guards and electric fences to keep the lawbreaking homeys out.
I'm betting you're feeling better already.
The majority of replies to this tragic story make me sick to my stomach.
Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves.
So this is the excuse? Because it was hot? Gimmie a break, hope it was worth it
Juantrice?
Watch the video here.
"It should probably be fenced and closed at night"
You have been listening to too many leftist liberals the past 30 years!
Don't make people responsible for their own stupidity - - - tear down, destroy, burn everything that could be even considered dangerous! Like books next, since they give people < shudder > ideas! Ban smoking! Ban drinking! Ban autos! Force Seatbelts! Ban DDT! etc etc etc etc
Just like churches are now locked since we can't blame the criminals for stealing!
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The victims were identified as Myron Dukes, 35, Lauren Dukes, 8, and Christopher Dukes, 13, all of the Chicago suburb of South Holland, Ill; and Juanitrice Deadmon, 11, of Chicago.
The family was identified by the pastor of their church, Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago.
The victims were among the thousands of visitors attending the National Baptist Congress at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
The pastor, Gerald M. Dew, said he was told that the children went to the Water Gardens to play because the swimming pool at the Fort Worth Plaza hotel was closed for maintenance.
One of the children slipped, which started a chain reaction, Dew said.
Bike patrol officer Tony Maldonado, who was one of the first officers to arrive at the swirling pool, said he jumped in and the force "literally sucked the socks off my feet."
Stephanie Dukes, the wife and mother of the victims, "was holding up as best as can be expected," Dew said.
Dew described the Dukes family as "faithful, dedicated church members."
The Water Gardens, a 30-year-old park bracketed by the Fort Worth Convention Center and Lancaster Avenue, is a cool oasis at the southern end of downtown. Thousands of gallons of recirculating water create different effects in pools, which are surrounded by landscaping and concrete walls.
The park was designed by well-known New York architect Philip Johnson and donated to the city in 1974 by the Amon G. Carter Foundation.
Small bronze signs at entrances to the park warn visitors "No wading or swimming," but the warning is commonly ignored.
Although the potential danger at the park has been an issue for years, Wednesday's drownings were the first, officials said.
"We've never had a tragedy like this in the Water Gardens," said Lt. Kent Worley, a Fire Department spokesman.
The four drowned in the Active Pool, an inverted pyramid in which water slides down the sides, turning into waterfalls before splashing into a small pool at the base. Steps lead from street level into the pool.
According to a firefighter's depth gauge, the water in the pool was 9 feet deep. A drain in the bottom recirculates the water.
Christian Tillis, 14, of Fort Worth said he saw a girl fall into the pool, and when a second child reached out to help her, the first girl pulled her in. Tillis said a man jumped in after the children and then a third child jumped in.
When he saw the man struggling, Tillis said, he jumped in, too.
"When I grabbed ahold of the girl's arm, I almost had her," Tillis said.
But the water's suction was strong, Tillis said, and he went back to the surface.
"I wanted to go back and get her, but if I did I might have died, too," Tillis said.
Clarence Tillis, 15, also jumped in and tried to save the victims.
He said his hand got stuck between the man and one of the steps, and he had to let go because he was running out of air.
He saw the man come up and go back down three times, "but he didn't come up the fourth time," Tillis said.
Maldonado and fellow bike patrol officer R.B. Owen were the first officers to arrive, two minutes after a 911 call was received at 6:45 p.m.
They said they dropped their shoes and gun belts and rushed down the slope to the pool.
"We jumped in, and it sucked us right to the bottom," Owen said.
Firefighters arrived in another minute. "Everybody just jumped in," Worley said.
Emergency crews could be heard on the law-enforcement scanner calling for the water to be turned off. Worley said that was accomplished "fairly quickly." He said he did not know whether the suction in the bottom of the pool was from the drain or from water cascading from above.
Worley said that the Water Gardens would be closed until an investigation is complete. The water had been drained from all pools late Wednesday.
April Barnes, 15, of Hattiesburg, Miss., who was at the pool with her mother, said she jumped in and tried to get one of the girls out.
"I had the little girl by her bathing suit," Barnes said.
When Barnes reached for her mother's hand to get pulled out of the water, she lost her grip on the little girl, she said.
Barnes' mother, Stephanie Johnson, said the man jumped into the pool and struggled to save the girls.
"He just jumped in there trying to save them," Johnson said.
When the $6 million Water Gardens were donated to the city, the gift was described in 1975 by a New York Times art critic as both "useless and absolutely splendid."
Franz Schulze, Philip Johnson's biographer, said that Johnson mentioned to him several times "the element of danger" he had designed into the Water Gardens.
"He felt the thrill of what he called `pseudo-danger' increased the visitors' appreciation of the park," Schulze told the Star-Telegram in 1993.
The Water Gardens were intended to create an island of serenity in the downtown area and were never meant as a place for people to swim or cool off.
"It is prohibited for people to swim or wade," said Dee Hardin, city parks superintendent. "Stay out of the water in the Water Gardens. The water is just to look at."
Over the years, the city has paid thousands of dollars in claims to visitors injured in falls on the irregularly spaced stone steps and ridges.
Before Wednesday, the park's most serious accident was in 1991, when an 80-foot light pole fell and killed two Internal Revenue Service agents taking a break in the park.
Bill Teeter, (817) 390-7757
bteeter@star-telegram.com
Mitch Mitchell, (817) 390-7420
mitchmitchell@star-telegram.com
This is heartbreaking, and most of the responses on this thread are DISGRACEFUL.
You didn't read the article closely, there was a parent with his two kids and another child and they all drowned.
Judging from some of the pathetic responses here, some folks don't even bother to read. I figure it a duty to point out the obvious to these idiots.
1. this is a tragic and real story effecting a family of our fellow americans.
2. Local folks often wade there.
3. A child not listening to the parent jumped in.
4. A father and siblings died trying to save this runaway child.
What's wrong with you people? Yea, I'm talking about you. You know who you are.
What a terrible tragedy. I hope the families can find peace and comfort in God showing himselves through those around them. As for the posts in this thread (haven't read it yet just assumed) which someone blamed the victims, I feel sorry for you.
I see your point now, my apologies.
I could not visualize the place until I saw the picture and wonder as you why these people could not read a sign and do as they were supposed to.
Imagine, there had not been any incident or much less a drowning in the 30 years that place has been there and now this.
I am sure they are some lawyers salivating on this one as I guess that place is owned and run by the city. They are going to say it should have had a fence around it.
I noticed that his Pastor said he was a good chruch goer, etc., where does that translate into someone with common sense? Unfortunately none of what the Pastor had to say had anything to do with this tragic loss of four lives.
The intaske for the pump is obviously at the very bottom and has no vacuum breaker in the pipe leading to the pump; a tragedy designed and waiting to occur. No end to idiots, especially educated ones.
Intake grate, sorry.
Reminds me of the time I hiked to the top of one of the waterfalls at Yosemite. There are signs posted warning people to stay out of the water. The ranger said every so often folks ignore that, step in the water, ( which is rushing past you over slick stone), and ZIP!, There they go, over the side, gone!
Let me tell you about children. They can get excited and do the unexpected. Such as in this most tragic case.
Now you know.
The real question which nobody seems to have asked here is, could ANY of these people swim?
I've worked as a lifeguard and pulled some folks out (thankfully all in time), and nobody deserves to drown for a moment of inattention. But if they could not swim, it's even more of a senseless tragedy.
I guess they just went to the water gardens in their bathing suits to just look. Their intention was to get into the water. Albeit a tragedy, the parents used extremely bad judgment in taking the kids there, especially with all of the NO SWIMMING AND WADING signs all over. There is going to be a lawsuit and the lawyers are going to make a bundle from FW but the blame rests with the parents/grownups. Responsibility is something that is amiss with this story.
Any person's first instinct would be to jump in and pull a child out of the water. I don't think they realized that was a suction that made this fountain so dangerous even if they could swim.
I see this as a Cargo Cult sacrificial offering to the Trial Lawyer gods.
My dad's maxim is that EVERYONE, without exception, should know how to swim, shoot, ride a horse, and change a tire. Any one of them could save your life (if I had had to walk down the Grand Canyon and back up, I would have died! < g > )
I would NEVER take him to a place like this, and I certainly wouldn't take him in a swimsuit - thus giving him permission (in HIS eyes) to get in the water.
Certainly accidents happen, and I'm sure the family didn't anticipate the tragic results here, but if they took these kids over there in bathing suits and nobody could swim, that does increase the likelihood that an accident would happen.
You'd never get manslaughter to stick, but Phillip Johnson's career should be ruined by this. I had no idea the pool itself was 9' deep, there is zero excuse for that.
I am one of the first to speak out against the over-lawyering and dumbing-down of designs to avoid liability, but every designer has a responsibility to avoid reasonably anticipated dangers. Why on earth should that pool be more than 3' deep, given how this is an interactive public exhibit, and thus all but assured that at some point a child is going to slip on the wet surfaces and fall into the pool?
Nothing wrong with creating that 'sense' of risk and danger, but if a designer is going to do so in a public space, the risk and danger should be perceived, not actual. The city is also to blame, they had to approve the design before it was built. Where was the common sense? Speaking of the city's idiocy, how about the park spokesman who yesterday was quoted all over the news as claiming that there was no drain to create suction at the bottom of the pool. Then how does the water drain off(note that there are no upper overflow drains like one would find in a sink or bathtub.) I guess all the rescue workers were liars?
If this were a kid drowning in someone's backyard pool, I'd be adamently against any lawsuit. But in this case the intended use and design makes having an unnecessarily deep pool irresponsible, and for once I can't immediately condemn a lawyer for suing Phillip Johnson and the city of Ft. Worth.
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