School Learns Painful Lesson on Safety : * $12-Million Settlement Is an Inducement to Take More Precautions Around Water

A teen-ager who suffered permanent brain damage when he almost drowned at Anaheim High School now stands to receive more than $12 million, over his lifetime, as the result of a recent court settlement.

While the school district still maintains that there was no negligence on its part, and that the physical education teacher in charge of the class where the accident occurred acted properly, the settlement inevitably raises the question of just how adequate the district’s safety precautions really were at the time.

Duc Thuong Luu, 17, claims he went into the pool during an exercise session in a physical education class in 1989, although he did not know how to swim. His lawsuit alleged that the teacher in charge of his class, the only adult present, failed to monitor more than 30 students who were around the pool.

According to witnesses, Luu, then a freshman, apparently slid off an inflated tube and slipped under while the teacher was working with another student in another end. According to his attorney, he was under water for several minutes before students spotted him motionless on the bottom. The accident has left him with memory and concentration lapses.

The high school is self-insured, and has agreed to an elaborate financial plan to compensate the student. But what has the high school learned from all this?

It has since stopped taking physical education classes into the pool, although it is not entirely clear that the decision resulted from the accident. Whatever the motivation for the change of procedure, it is a good one. Having a situation where 30 or more students, some of whom may not be swimmers, are monitored in a pool area by only one adult is an invitation to misfortune. That applies whether students are good swimmers or not.

Furthermore, new state regulations have gone into effect since the accident that require any teacher taking a class into a pool area to have water safety instruction training. That’s a sensible requirement that will reduce the likelihood of another accident such as the one that occurred in 1989.

But the school can enhance safety around the pool by insisting on an adequate number of instructors or supervisors any time students are brought in, whatever their level of swimming accomplishment.

The high school learning experience turns out to consist of many things. Part of an education can be learning to have a healthy respect for water and for water safety. And the district itself can go to school on its painful lesson in proper supervision.