ANNAPOLIS, MD--The Maryland General Assembly is considering legislation that would expand on Connor’s Law, legislation passed last year named for a 5-year-old boy who drowned at the Crofton Country Club’s pool in 2006.
Connor’s Law started in Anne Arundel County in 2012. The county law requires all public and semipublic pools to have an automated external defibrillator, or AED.
Last year the General Assembly passed legislation requiring aquatics facilities owned by local governments and municipalities to have AEDs and train lifeguards to use them.
This year, Del. Tom Hucker, D-Montgomery, is trying to expand Connor's Law to include nearly every other swimming pool in the state.
Hucker's House Bill 1248 would require an AED and a trained lifeguard at pools where swimming lessons are offered, at water parks and at other pools.
In 2006, 5-year-old Connor John-James Freed drowned at the Crofton Country Club’s pool. After the boy was taken out of the pool, a lifeguard dialed 911 and said that while the pool had a defibrillator, he wasn’t trained to use it.
Debbie Neagle-Freed, Connor’s mother, is pursuing legislation to establish Connor's Law on the federal level. But right now, she said, she's working on getting it right in Maryland.
Testifying on Hucker's bill before the House Health and Government Operations Committee on Monday, Neagle-Freed said the state made progress last year but now needs to take one more step.
"A defibrillator would have saved Connor's life that day," Neagle-Freed said.
After Connor's death, Neagle-Freed and her husband sued the Crofton Country Club and its managing company and were awarded $4 million by a county jury. That award was later reduced to $1 million because of a state cap on jury awards for pain and suffering.
In 2007, the couple founded the Connor Cares Foundation, which promotes swimming safety by donating defibrillators to pools in Anne Arundel, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.
Neagle-Freed said Monday that if the job gets done in Maryland, she's still going to be pushing for lawmakers to pass Connor's Law on Capitol Hill.
She said she has met with an aide to U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and is trying to convince a Maryland lawmaker in Washington, D.C., to introduce legislation there.
SOURCE: Carroll County Times