Report: Corroded wire led to teen’s death at Wake County pool

A pump motor failed and a corroded wire sent an electrical current into the swimming pool where a 17-year-old lifeguard was electrocuted and drowned earlier this month, according to a report from the Wake County inspections department.

Rachel Rosoff, a senior at Enloe High School, died at the Heritage Point subdivision pool in northern Wake County on Sept. 3.

When the pool’s pump motor stopped working properly, a corroded wire prevented the flow of electricity that would have tripped the circuit breaker. So the electrical current followed a path into the pool’s water, Gregory A. Vance, an inspections administrator for Wake, wrote in a Sept. 9 report.

Wake County regularly inspects its 1,165 pools, but the inspections do not include electrical systems or wires, according to Wake County spokeswoman Jennifer Heiss. Inspectors check for several safety factors, including chemical levels.

The Heritage Point pool was inspected three times for health and safety in 2016 without issues, Heiss said.

The pool was built in 1979, according to the inspections department report, and it complied at the time with the 1978 National Electrical Code. New pools must pass an initial inspection, but Wake doesn’t inspect them again unless a new permit is issued, such as for major renovations.

In 2011, workers did not get a permit when they relocated an electrical feed at the pool above ground, the report said. Such work requires an electrical permit from the county.

“The County has no knowledge of who performed this work,” Vance wrote in the report. It did not indicate whether the work contributed to Rosoff’s death.

Other changes were made that did not comply with national standards but did not contribute to the pool becoming electrified, the report said.

Thomas Harte, a Holly Springs electrician who specializes in pool wiring and lighting, said if the wire hadn’t been corroded, the electrical current would have traveled through it and tripped a breaker, preventing electricity from going into the water.

“It had nothing to stop it,” he said of the electricity.

The state Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Division has opened an investigation into Aquatic Management Group, which manages the Heritage Point pool. The department will interview employees, review safety and training records and safety programs, and also try to find witnesses.

The department is required by state law to complete investigations within six months, though a spokeswoman says they generally take between three and four months.

If the department determines there were safety violations, it could issue fines or citations.

Last week, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement saying investigators had not found any evidence that a crime had occurred at the pool.

Alex Antoniou, chief marketing and information officer at the National Swimming Pool Foundation in Colorado, said if the pool’s electrical system had been replaced or repaired, the system failure might have been avoided.

“So much has been changed in the industry,” Antoniou said. The most current national standards are from 2014. “Using the 1978 code for your pool seems a little ancient.”

Electrocutions at swimming pools are rare. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has reports of 14 deaths related to electrocutions in pools from 2003 to 2014.

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 12:19 PM with the headline "Report: Corroded wire led to teen’s death at Wake County pool."