The Swim America complex has been open just three weeks. Last Friday night was a public swim night. Lisa Anderson and her children met two other families at the pool, and later everybody seemed to get sick.
Anderson said, "We were fine until Saturday night. We started having vomiting in the house by Sunday morning we had three down, and now Tuesday I had two more sick and I myself feel a little bit queasy."
"And all your friends also got sick as well?"
"Yes."
Lisa spoke to us over the phone because she was afraid we'd get sick if we went to her house. Two other families reported similar symptoms hit their kids who went to the pool. 8 kids got sick immediately and then spread it to other members of their family.
"The commonality is these children got sick and they happened to be at this facility," said Tim Casagrande with the Fresno County Department of Health. Casagrande also said the suspected Noro-virus is easy to spread, "You can basically pick it up anywhere it just a situation where someone who has the virus contaminates a surface, be it a door knob, a door way some other surface, counters whatever." Symptoms include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
There's so far nothing to indicate the virus was in the pool water. The Health Department inspected the system. "Yes, we checked the circulation system, everything was functioning properly all the chemicals were adequate. The facility is a state of the art facility," said Stephane Kalh with the Fresno County Health Department.
Swim America owner Lori Klatt says customers shouldn't worry, "Oh no, there's not problem in coming here. Our facility, our job here at Swim America is to keep children healthy."
The three families say the only place they were together was at the swimming complex. The health department is investigating; as they do anytime two or more people get sick after being at the same place, has so far they have given Swim America a clean bill of health.
