3 family members drown in pool while on vacation

Three members of a family vacationing in southern Spain drowned after becoming trapped in a swimming pool, prompting an investigation into a potential malfunction with a drainage mechanism that may have sucked them underwater, authorities said Wednesday.

The tragedy unfolded when a 9-year-old girl began having difficulties in the pool. When her father jumped in to rescue her, he then became trapped, too. Another family member, a 16-year-old, then entered the water to help, but all three died, said Jorge Martin, a spokesman for the Civil Guard of Malaga province, where the accident happened.

The father and daughter were British citizens and the teenager was American, authorities said. No further details were given about them, though five members of the family were said to have arrived in the town of Mijas on Saturday.

Accidents linked to faulty drainage or pumping systems in pools have happened before. In 2002, a 7-year-old girl from McLean, Virginia, drowned in a spa when she became entrapped by the powerful drag of a portal sucking water into a filtration system, and a man and three children died at a water park in Texas in 2004.

The family vacationing in Mijas had apparently been sunbathing at an outdoor swimming pool at the Club La Costa World resort Tuesday when the accident occurred, Martin said by telephone.

Police are treating the deaths as an accident, Martin said, though they are still trying to determine what happened.

A worker at the resort, responding to other vacationers’ cries for help, jumped into the pool to help the family members but was too late, Martin said.

Although the worker managed to retrieve the bodies, he also reported difficulties in getting out of the pool, describing the effect as being “like swimming in a wild river,” according to Martin.