23 sickened by swimming pool at Brunswick resort, lawsuit claims

A lawsuit filed this month claims {that a} Brunswick resort knowingly let visitors swim in a pool that had failed state inspections for greater than a 12 months, in the end inflicting an infectious illness outbreak that sickened 23 individuals.

The civil lawsuit towards Giri Hotel Management, LLC and Giri Brunswick, LLC was filed on Jan. 8 in Cumberland County Superior Court. The six named plaintiffs are people or {couples} suing for themselves and on behalf of minor kids.

According to the lawsuit, a state pool inspector in January 2022 notified the 2 Giri entities of eight violations at their Best Western Plus Brunswick resort, together with no functioning disinfectant feeder and no required chlorine testing or information. By March 2023, the defendants had not remediated any of the violations, in line with the lawsuit.

Giri Hotel Management didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

At least 23 individuals, most of them kids, who swam within the pool on March 4 and 5, 2023, turned significantly unwell after swimming within the pool, state and federal investigators concluded, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited within the lawsuit.

Lab testing confirmed the infections had been brought on by pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that can be deadly to humans however may be killed by means of the fundamental sanitation and chlorination that Maine legislation requires for public swimming pools, the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit notes that, based mostly on CDC knowledge spanning practically six many years, pseudomonas aeruginosa infections from resort swimming pools usually quantity 19 per 12 months throughout the U.S. — fewer than the one 2023 Brunswick outbreak.

Giri Hotels relies in Quincy, Massachusetts, and owns two different Maine lodging institutions, in line with the lawsuit: Anchorage by the Sea in Ogunquit, and Harraseeket Inn in Freeport.