Las Vegas Athletic Clubs, with seven large-scale locations serving southern Nevada, is suing the Southern Nevada Health District after its lifeguard waiver was revoked last week.
As reported by KVVU, the health district announced last Thursday that it would be revoking LVAC’s waiver following an investigation into the drowning death of a woman in early February. To prevent shutting down their facilities to comply with the order, LVAC filed a lawsuit against the district Monday.
“On or around 2017-2018, LVAC became aware of a new change in aquatic regulations which would require it to have three full-time lifeguards in each of its seven facilities,” the lawsuit reads. “Southern Nevada Health District did not provide LVAC with any notice of this new regulation.”
To comply with the policy change, LVAC sought a waiver that would allow it to monitor pool areas through video surveillance, which the district granted in 2020, as reported by KVVU's Rachel Zalucki. LVAC also describes a woman’s drowning death in early February as a “fatal heart attack,” which happened while the woman was surrounded by 15 other patrons.
“None of these patrons noticed that there was an emergency until the deceased succumbed to her heart attack,” LVAC states in the lawsuit, KVVU reported.
The Clark County Coroner confirmed to KVVU that this death was ruled a drowning, and identified the woman as 58-year-old Leticia Triplett.
In a release cited by KVVU that details why the waiver was revoked, the district noted that an inspection conducted a month after Triplett’s death found LVAC employees only checking the feeds every 30 minutes, rather than having the feeds “permanently staffed” as required by the waiver.
The lawsuit emphasizes that closing down pools across all of its locations would make customers, who pay for the facilities, “extremely upset.” Additionally, LVAC estimated the cost of remodeling each facility to meet the district’s order would cost anywhere from $7 million to $10 million per location, or $50 million to $70 million in total.
As an alternative, the lawsuit suggests a compromise that would see LVAC train lifeguards to monitor the pools full-time, rather than incur remodeling costs.
Last month, the Southern Nevada Health District announced that it would no longer be allowing waivers of the lifeguard requirement for 29 pools across 20 private gym locations with waivers in place.
Related: Private Gym Pools Face New Lifeguard Rules, Possible Closure in Nevada
Both LVAC and the health district declined KVVU's request for comment, and no hearing date had been set for the case as of Tuesday, when KVVU first reported the lawsuit.
