Fitness Management has published a lot of articles that deal with checklists. Equipment maintenance checklists, cleaning checklists, locker room checklists … the list goes on and on. I have to admit, after seven years, I’d gotten tired of them. Isn’t this common sense? I’d think. Don’t all fitness centers use checklists? Can’t we stop writing about them?
After reading a Fox News article about a dead man left overnight in a fitness facility’s steam room, I think it’s safe to say that the answer to these questions is a resounding NO.
Sixty-six-year-old Thomas Dodge, a regular member of the Coeur d-Alene Tribal Wellness Center, Plummer, Idaho, apparently suffered a heart attack in the center’s steam room after swimming. A janitor didn’t find his body until the next morning, almost 10 hours after his death.
This is inexcusable on so many levels, I don’t even know where to start.
The fitness center was likely helpless to prevent the heart attack, but it could have made a painful situation somewhat easier for Dodge’s family if staff members had found the body in a timely manner. Now the facility has made national news for poor maintenance practices, and its steam room will undoubtedly be deserted. What member wants to contemplate having an emergency in the steam room, then being abandoned by inattentive staff?
“Tribal spokesman Marc Stewart said closing procedures at the center require a walk-through to make sure no one is in the building,” reports Fox News. “Center officials will decide whether to change procedures after an investigation.”
Might I offer a suggestion? How about using … a checklist?
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