August 5, 2026: Autism & Water, Cultus Lake, Leslie's Pool Supply & Other Industry Updates
Good Afternoon,
I have a pool-pourri of topics I want to provide you updates on this week.
1) For almost two weeks, the City of Calgary was obsessed with finding Parker, an 11 year-old non-verbal, autistic boy who wandered away from his care facility. No expense was spared allocating resources and manpower to search the city, including volunteer citizen patrols who ultimately found his shoes outside a culvert under a major freeway where he had crawled up into a system of pipes.
This is not intended to be a criticism of the search effort, but I was always struck by the lack of emphasis on searching water bodies given what we know about neurodivergent individuals being drawn to water, so I thought it worth mentioning because maybe the knowledge isn't as common as we think outside of aquatics.
Heartbreaking end to search for missing 11-year-old Parker
Thank you from Parker's Parents
Calgary boy’s death hits home for parents of autistic kids prone to wandering or running away
Autism and Drowning Data for Florida and U.S.
2) Cultus Lake Waterpark in British Columbia started a phased reopening last week, after the electrocution of 12 children in June. You can read their press release here. I find it interesting how much of the park is still closed (illustration below). The Technical Safety B.C. Incident Investigation is not available here yet. I'll circle back to this story when it is published because I don't like to speculate what happened in the absence of facts.
3) Leslie's Pool Supply is not a company many commercial pool operators - or even Canadians - think about in a given day, but the company's financial distress after being acquired by private equity is a good canary-in-the-coalmine to showcase how complex pool operations are for those who've just never worked in the industry. Profitability and safety are rarely in alignment, and swimming pools will always be dynamic, complex operations no matter how much the finance team thinks they can magically engineer a higher profit margin from a theoretical spreadsheet.
H/T to my colleague, Megan Kendrick, owner of PoolPro Magazine for sharing this excellent, in-depth article as well as an easy-to-understand YouTube discussion (below). Like me, she can often spot the big picture that others in our industry miss.
From a $3 Billion Valuation to a Penny Stock: How Private Equity Squeezed a Pool Empire Dry
How Private Equity Squeezed a Pool Empire Dry | 1 Smart Business Story
4) Speaking of being acquired, in late 2021, Taylor Technologies out of Sparks, Maryland - the Made in the USA blue water chemistry test kit that many pool operators know & love - was acquired by Fluidra. This is old news, and - at the time - sounded like a great development. The larger parent brand can throw more resources behind the baby brand, right?
Unfortunately, no different from Leslie's, what I've seen first hand is the loss of many components of what the original business unique, beloved and trusted. Helpful training graphics, real humans to can call for water chemistry troubleshooting. How long will the products continue to be made domestically if a higher profit margin can be achieved somewhere else?
I was updating Wayne Ivusich's Better Water Testing Techniques webinar - he's since retired from Taylor - so I was very happy to accidentally come across some of these older graphics that have since disappeared from the Taylor website.
Anonymous Advice Column
People are always asking for help or my opinion, but sometimes they're too embarrassed to ask in the first place. I've started an advice column. Please feel welcome to submit any & all questions HERE without any judgement.
Here's everything else that's been happening in aquatics & water safety over the last week. Unfortunately, the Heritage Day long weekend in Canada, and the heat wave across the USA, have substantially contributed to many fatal & non-fatal drowning reports in both supervised and unsupervised settings.
Teen dies after near-drowning incident at OKANA
The victim's dad reports the 18 year-old wasn't able to swim and was accustomed to water slides running out into a shallow basin, not deep water.
Mommy influencer Emilie Kiser ripped after showing toddler son on boat without life jacket – a year after son Trigg drowned
I'm genuinely unsure if I was completely wrong in my proclamation earlier this year, or how we're failing as an industry to connect water safety in & around pools to boating safety. Influencers are human people who err, but I genuinely was not expecting this turn of events after her appearance on the Jay Shetty podcast.
2-Year-Old Girl Drowns in Swimming Pool While Father Searched for Her
15-year-old dies in accidental tree fall at Tennessee YMCA camp, police say
Unfortunately this happened happens more often that we think - see this older chat from 2022.
Marine Corps Officially Raises Swim Standards for All Marines Starting Oct. 1
The USMC is the smallest branch of service, but it also consistently has the highest rate of drowning fatalities both in action/combat and during training.
Child in critical condition after being pulled from Mississauga pool
To avoid the appearance of clickbait, transparently this was a residential pool.
N.J. man exposed himself, performed lewd acts at community pool, police say
5-Year-Old Boy Dies After Being Found at Bottom of Pool at Florida Airbnb
How to Safely Transfer a Wheelchair User Out of the Pool
Not every facility allows staff to help/support bathers with this transition, so please use this information with caution.
Child transported to hospital after near-drowning at Six Flags Great America Hurricane Harbor in Gurnee
To be fair to these supervised water parks, it's August and I'm sure most are at max guest capacity. I don't want to be making excuses for the lifeguards when we don't know what happened, but it's also August, the end of the season when staff approach burnout from working back-to-back days in very hot conditions, managing angry guests, and some staff also start to unexpectedly quit early so they have time off from work before school resumes.
City says pool closure date picked due to late summer attendance, staffing challenges
I want to touch on the perception of this issue again more next week.
Burnaby launches free lifeguard certification pilot with school district
Rocky View County man drowns in second fatal water incident Saturday
Lucas Roper, 19, indicted in connection with drowning death of Daniel Erving
Reflecting pool damage was the result of botched work, not vandals, DOJ says
Thanks for reading, I'll see you next week.
Katie Crysdale
Lakeview Aquatic Consultants Ltd.
PS. Last week's episode can be found here.
I probably should have made this statement when I posted about aquatics & AI a few weeks ago. However, you will now see this AI statement at the bottom of every newsletter going forward.
No AI tools were used to research, consolidate, format or write any portion of this newsletter.