Boy loses both legs below knee in water-park mishap

[nitroblast]

Boy loses both legs below knee in water-park mishap
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 | 12:41 PM ET
CBC News

A seven-year-old boy seriously injured in a swimming pool accident at a Quebec water park has lost both legs below the knee.

One of the boy's legs was severed Monday when he got caught in an intake pipe at the bottom of the pool. The other leg was amputated in hospital.

Alexis Auclair had been playing in the pool at the water park in Saint-Pie, about 50 kilometres east of Montreal.

"He was sucked up in the tube," said witness Frederik Chr?tien, an employee at Le Camping des Glissades d'eau St-Pie.

"When he got out, he was missing a foot, and the other was attached by just a little skin," said Chr?tien.

Auclair's heart had stopped when he was pulled from the water by a lifeguard and another patron, but his vital signs returned when he was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

He was rushed to Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal where doctors amputated his legs below the knee because they were not able to save either foot, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Auclair will be given prosthetic feet.

"He should be able to walk by the end of the summer, and to be back to school," doctors told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

 "He will have to learn to walk again."

Water park co-owner Denis Arcand said a lifeguard had warned swimmers they were getting too close to the intake pipe, which is about 30 centimetres in diameter, just before the boy was trapped.

When he saw that the boy was caught, the lifeguard turned off the pump that draws water into the pipe.

Quebec provincial police spokesman Claude Denis said an investigation is underway to determine whether protective screens were in place on the pipe and, if not, at what point they came off.

The park has been closed for an indefinite period of time.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/07/11/boy-critical.html