The parents of a 3-year-old Pittsburgh girl who nearly died after she became trapped by suction from a wading pool drain at a resort in Mexico last year are suing the drain’s manufacturer.
Adam Quatrini and Carolina Maria Vélez, of Shadyside, filed the lawsuit on Monday in federal court in Pittsburgh against Hayward Industries Inc., based in Charlotte, N.C.
The suit includes claims for strict liability, negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. It asserts that the drain cover was improperly rated to handle the flow of water.
An attorney for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
According to the complaint, the family was vacationing at Punta Mita Resort in Nayarit, Mexico, on Feb. 16, 2025, when they went to the Kipuri Beach Club, which had a shallow wading pool it advertised as “‘tailor-made for tots.’”
While the girl was in the wading pool with her younger brother and cousins, the lawsuit said, she sat near a pool drain and became trapped.
The suction from the drain was so strong, it continued, that it tore the girl’s small intestine from her body as her parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins watched. She could only be freed, the complaint said, after the pool drain system was turned off.
The child was immediately rushed to the closest hospital, the lawsuit said, where life-saving procedures were performed before she was flown to UPMC’s Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
She remained hospitalized for 44 days and had to have more than a dozen surgeries, the complaint said. She was on a ventilator for 11 days.
“Because of the defective nature of the Hayward drain, (the child’s) life was tragically altered, and she will endure continued medical issues for the rest of her life,” the lawsuit said.
The girl recently turned 5.
The family filed an initial complaint in the case in July in Pittsburgh naming several additional defendants, including the resort, which was later withdrawn.
In response to that complaint, Hayward’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the incident occurred in Mexico and had little, if any, connection to Western Pennsylvania.
The motion argued that Hayward is not incorporated and does not have a principal business operation in Pennsylvania. Instead, the company argued Mexico is an adequate alternative forum for the litigation, especially given that the majority of evidence and witnesses are located there.
However, attorney Robert Zimmerman, who represents the family, said Tuesday they refiled the lawsuit, naming only Hayward as a defendant, in Pittsburgh because a majority of the witnesses involved are here.
“A 3-year-old girl should not have to litigate her case in a foreign country where she was almost killed,” Zimmerman said. “The last thing these parents want to do is go back to Mexico where this horrific incident occurred.”
This is not the first such lawsuit filed against Hayward.
According to Virginia court records, a 7-year-old girl drowned there in June 2002 after becoming pinned underwater by suction from the drain cover of an outdoor hot tub.
That lawsuit was ultimately dismissed against Hayward because too much time had elapsed from when the pool drain cover was manufactured and installed to when the incident occurred.
As a result of that girl’s death, in 2007, the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, was signed into federal law, setting safety standards for pool drain covers, requiring anti-entrapment devices and a safety vacuum release system, as well as a public education campaign.
Hayward drains were also the subject of a recall in May 2011.
Drain covers sold by the company — as well as seven others — from December 2008 to April 2011 were recalled by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission because they were “incorrectly rated to handle the flow of water through the cover, which could pose a possible entrapment hazard to swimmers and bathers.”