How dangerous are overweight foam Hot Tub Covers? Recently a friend was
checking the chemicals in his hot tub. Rather than attempting removing the
entire hot tub cover, he decided to just lift one side enough to get at the
water long enough to get a sample. He bent over and supporting the
heavy hot tub cover with his left arm while attempting to fill a sampling
bottle with water from the hot tub to check the chemical levels.
As he leaned over further, the weight of the water logged hot tub cover
dislocated his left shoulder and allowed the cover to hit him on the
back knocking him into the hot tub. He was now face down in the water with
his legs pinned by the weight of the hot tub cover. His shoulder was
dislocated and he was
in extreme pain. He tried to move but could not budge
the weight of the waterlogged hot tub cover.
He began to choke as he swallowed water and tried to rise up but
could barely get his head out of the water. With what could have been
his last breath, he screamed for help. Fortunately he had left the door
from the house to the deck open. His daughter and her boy friend heard
the commotion and looked out to see his legs sticking out from under the hot tub
cover.
His daughter and her boy friend were able to lift the cover off of
his legs. His daughters boy friend jumped into the hot tub and pulled
him up from the water. They took him to the emergency room where they
put his shoulder back in place and treated him for shock.
My friend had owned a hot tub for 12 years and had replaced 3
conventional rigid foam core hot tub covers, each when they became too heavy and saturated to lift. Regardless of manufactures
claims, all the hot tub covers became waterlogged. He has since bought a Hot Tub
Cover that uses air chambers to insulate rather than rigid foam. He is
certain that the air filled spa cover will not try to kill him as the
other foam cover did.
Here is something you will never hear from dealers who sell foam Hot Tub Covers, every year people are injured by foam hot tub covers. Most of the
injuries have come from a gust of wind blowing the heavy foam cover
onto people as they use their spa. Sometimes people attempting to
carefully maneuver a saturated foam cover off their spa, have lost
their grip and had the hard foam cover slam down causing injury.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission people have
even been drowned when they have become trapped under heavy foam
hot tub covers.
Maybe now is a good time to search for a better Hot Tub cover. With
the World Wide Web, you can literally have the world to shop from. Do
you really want to risk injury or death trying to use your spa?