My grandmother has MS, and is ALWAYS either in a wheel chair on her butt, or in bed on her but, or in her sling on her butt.

And we decided to get her into the pool (we are in Arizona, always a good time for swimming hehe) to take some pressure off her spine and rump.


So all that aside...


We took the hoyer part off the base...

It looks like this... I marked where it comes off

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/JenniPepsi/966748HOYER-LIFT-1.jpg



And we drilled a hole in the side of the pool deck to insert the hoyer into and use the sling to lower her into the water. (we tried to build a platform so that we wouldn't have to drill but it wouldn't support the weight)


I hope I explained well enough...


My queston is. Is there a law that says how DEEP the hole needs to be? I know when we did our ramps for her chair we had to do A lot of mesuring and slanting because it all had to be a specific grade.

The hole is deep enough to support her weight (150) and works well the way it is. But I want to make sure there are no legal guildlines

jenniepepsi, you are setting yourself up for some serious liability if you use the Hoyer for any purpose other then what it was designed for. If anything should happen to your grandma while using the Hoyer altered like that, I don't know how you would explain it if injury to her should occur in the operation of lowering her into the pool.

The Hoyer people may have a problem with that alteration should they ever find out.

I am looking at this from a technical standpoint because of the use I make of Hoyers in my line of work. If you want to to do this without any possibility of problems, I would ask Hoyer first.

To answer your question, yes, there may be a legal issue here should anything happen while using the Hoyer for its intended purpose in the house. Say, you should weaken the structure in some way.

Tick

Good point... I will call them. Thanks tickle

Yes, I think you had better, because you are altering the basic design and purpose.

Good luck but there may be something else you can use other then that if it doesn't turn out. I will put my thinking cap on.

Tick

Sorry for beign so late, but I wanted to let you guys know that we contacted hoyer, and they accually had a special pool deck mounting for it that we were able to have installed :D so all is good and grandma has been in the pool, though she does not like it, it DID take the pressure off her back and butt which she was happy for :)