Pool Filter Explosion Leaves Service Technician With Serious Facial Injuries

A pool service technician in Charlotte County, Florida, suffered multiple facial fractures when a pressurized pool filter lid blew off and struck him in the face. Weslee Blakeslee spent two nights in the hospital after the Nov. 4 incident.

Blakeslee told the station he was working on a pool filter when pressure built rapidly. A lid came off, cutting his cheek and knocking him to the ground. Nearly a week later, the swelling had gone down, but he said the left side of his face was still numb, making it difficult to brush his teeth. Even wearing glasses put pressure on his injured nose.

“This was just a regular Wednesday, and it could have been so much worse,” Blakeslee told Gulf Coast News, which originally broke the story.

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A GoFundMe co-organized by his wife, Ana Blakeslee, says he was transferred to a hospital in Fort Myers for specialist evaluation. The family’s account describes nine fractures in his face, including his jaw, cheek, nose, and bones surrounding his eye.

Pool filter failures have caused deaths and serious injuries in the past

Blakeslee acknowledged how fortunate he was that his injuries weren’t far worse, and is currently recovering at home. Other pool workers have died in similar incidents. In June 2023, a worker opening a residential pool in Sandy, Utah, was killed when a filter lid blew off and struck him in the face. The investigation summary says it remains unclear what he was doing when the lid separated.

In December 2012, a filter housing lid struck a worker in the head at a residential pool, causing facial fractures and putting him in the hospital for two weeks. OSHA’s accident summary noted deformation on the ring clamp that secured the lid. Investigators reported that the bolt holding the clamp together appeared to have pulled free under excessive pressure.

A similar injury happened to a Florida homeowner. In a 2020 investigation, Tampa Bay’s WFTS reported that David Shimkus had just finished cleaning his pool filter in Belleair Bluffs when the metal top blew off and struck him in the forehead. He told the station he was still dealing with daily pain from the injury about a year later.

For service crews, the clamp on a split-tank filter is a pressure-retaining component. The ANSI/APSP/ICC standard for above-ground and on-ground residential pools addresses that hazard directly. It calls for perimeter-clamped filter tanks to release air pressure gradually before the clamp disengages the tank halves. The Florida incident leaves an open question about which component failed. The earlier cases show how serious the consequences can be when a lid separates.

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