A disturbing video that shows people walking and swimming by a woman who was struggling in a gym pool, has led to a change in lifeguard policies at Las Vegas Athletic Club pools. The woman, Leticia Triplett, 58, drowned in the pool at the North Decatur Las Vegas Athletic Club in February, 2024, and video evidence obtained by 8 News Now captured what happened that day.
According to the outlet, Triplett went into the pool and held onto the pool wall, kicking her legs. At one point, she appeared to go underwater unintentionally and started struggling to get back up.
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She was able to make it to the stairs and tried to use them to get out of the pool, but she fell underwater. As she struggled, no one seemed to notice. There was no lifeguard on duty. In 2020, LVAC was granted an in-person lifeguard waiver, reported KTNV. The lifeguard waiver gave gyms permission to watch what was happening in the pool via video camera, with no in-person lifeguard.
In June, the outlet reported that Triplett's death was a big reason why the waiver was revoked.
After struggling in the pool, Triplett remained in the water, not moving, for about 10 minutes, and no one intervened even though they walked and swam by, reported 8 News Now.
In total, she appeared to struggle for 20 minutes without anyone from the Las Vegas Athletic Club intervening. After those 20 minutes had passed, a swimmer noticed Triplett's body in the pool, pulled her out of the pool with help from others, and a LVAC employee appeared a minute later, according to 8 News Now.
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Triplett died as a result of the incident. The Las Vegas Athletic Club claims that Triplett died from cardiac arrest, and that it was not "a direct drowning event," per 8 News Now. But an expert told KTNV that a lifeguard could've quickly recognized that Triplett was struggling and could've gotten her out of the water because of the training lifeguards receive.
Joel Henriod, an attorney representing Southern Nevada Health District, echoed these claims when speaking to 8 News Now. Henriod told the outlet that other people swimming at the gym were ultimately not responsible for looking for signs of struggling, and having a lifeguard on duty would've made the pool a safer place to swim.
On June 13, 2024, SNHD shared a news release about the decision to revoke the lifeguard waiver.
"An important factor in the Health District’s decision was video showing an incident in February 2024 in which an LVAC customer died in one of its indoor pool facilities," the news release stated.
During the four years that the lifeguard exemption was in place, "the Health District determined these waivers were not adequate to ensure the facilities were protecting the public after two serious incidents occurred, including the death, and repeated failures by facilities to meet the requirements of the variance."
