After she recovered she told me she was trying to push her legs down and stand up, but they wouldn’t go down.
I see an electrical cord going into that fountain (I assume for the pump), and I would like to point out a hidden danger which might or might not have played a role here. Faulty electrical wiring in water (such as a pool or a fountain) can cause current to flow through the body of a person in the water, leading to muscle contraction / paralysis. If the leakage current is large enough, it can directly kill; but even if it’s fairly small, the resulting paralysis can cause drowning, due to the inability to right oneself or exit the water.
The reason I’m not sure this was the cause here, is that you didn’t describe any sensation of shock when reaching into the water. However, it’s possible that you were wearing well-insulated shoes, or that you just didn’t notice the sensation because of adrenaline.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_shock_drowning it’s apparently most common with malfunctioning electrical systems on boats/piers; but it does occasionally happen in fountains or pools. It can result in a very tragic problem that also sometimes happens with confined space / toxic atmosphere rescues; the would-be rescuers (not perceiving the danger) end up as additional victims.
Because of this, I tend to be very careful about entering pools / hot tubs whose maintenance status is not known to me. (Anything electrical that’s in/near water, if installed to modern code, will have a GFCI, which will trip instantly in case of leakage current.) Obviously this does not help someone who slips in by accident. I am also very nervous about any sort of electrical device that is used in water (such as the fountain pump in the picture.) If it’s got 120V going into the water, the hazard is obvious; but even if the immersed cord is low-voltage, it’s still likely to be one malfunction (of the power brick) away from electrifying the water to 120V, if the brick is not plugged into a GFCI. And if the fountain / the brick was obtained from Amazon, it’s likely not made to American electrical safety standards.
I see an electrical cord going into that fountain (I assume for the pump), and I would like to point out a hidden danger which might or might not have played a role here. Faulty electrical wiring in water (such as a pool or a fountain) can cause current to flow through the body of a person in the water, leading to muscle contraction / paralysis. If the leakage current is large enough, it can directly kill; but even if it’s fairly small, the resulting paralysis can cause drowning, due to the inability to right oneself or exit the water.
The reason I’m not sure this was the cause here, is that you didn’t describe any sensation of shock when reaching into the water. However, it’s possible that you were wearing well-insulated shoes, or that you just didn’t notice the sensation because of adrenaline.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_shock_drowning it’s apparently most common with malfunctioning electrical systems on boats/piers; but it does occasionally happen in fountains or pools. It can result in a very tragic problem that also sometimes happens with confined space / toxic atmosphere rescues; the would-be rescuers (not perceiving the danger) end up as additional victims.
Because of this, I tend to be very careful about entering pools / hot tubs whose maintenance status is not known to me. (Anything electrical that’s in/near water, if installed to modern code, will have a GFCI, which will trip instantly in case of leakage current.) Obviously this does not help someone who slips in by accident. I am also very nervous about any sort of electrical device that is used in water (such as the fountain pump in the picture.) If it’s got 120V going into the water, the hazard is obvious; but even if the immersed cord is low-voltage, it’s still likely to be one malfunction (of the power brick) away from electrifying the water to 120V, if the brick is not plugged into a GFCI. And if the fountain / the brick was obtained from Amazon, it’s likely not made to American electrical safety standards.
I was barefoot, but I’m also not sure shoes would be that big a component since I was fully in the water?
I don’t remember feeling any shock, and I think I still would have noticed?