A man who broke his back diving into a swimming pool in France is suing the homeowner the pool belonged to.
However, the person who became paralysed had been taking part in a ‘pool squatting’ challenge where someone gets into another’s swimming pool without permission.
According to The Local, in 2022 an 18-year-old man dived head-first into a 1.08 metre deep pool in Toulouse and severely injured his spine, leaving him a quadriplegic.
Now he’s suing the co-owners of the swimming pool for negligence, and the France Victimes group claimed that ‘swimming pool owners are bound by a safety obligation towards users’.
“In the event of an accident due to a lack of maintenance or negligence, they can be held liable,” they told French outlet La Dépêche.
In 2022 an 18-year-old man in France became paralysed after diving into a swimming pool. (Getty Stock Photo)
French lawyer Maître Fabien Gaillard told BFMTV that when an accident happens ‘the owners do have to answer for that damage that was caused, even if that occurred while the person was illegally on the premises’.
Alexandra, one of the owners of the pool, said she sympathised with the man but said they shouldn’t have to ‘pay for other people’s stupidity’.
Speaking to La Dépêche, she said: “We’re completely at a loss.
“We feel sorry for this young man who hurt himself and shattered his life at the age of 18, but he knew not to jump there and he had no business being there.”
The owners claim they told the teenager to leave, and that the pool’s depth at either end was made clear with signs.
One of the pool’s co-owners said that they’d clearly had signs saying how deep it was. (Getty Stock Photo)
At one end it was 1.08 metres deep and at the other it was 2.2 metres deep, and Alexandra said that in the six years they’d had the pool people had been breaking in to get to it every year.
She said: “The young people come from several neighborhoods: Empalot, Trois Cocus or Lalande
“We hired a guard one summer, but he knew the squatters and let them in.
“It’s distressing, we are aware that we could lose in court.
“We worked hard to acquire a property of this size, today we feel like our right to property is being taken away from us.”
Now they’re considering taking other measures to stop people from breaking in and using the pool, possibly even including barbed wire.
However, when La Dépêche contacted the pool’s management, Crédit Agricole Immobilier, they said they hadn’t yet received any legal summons.