I don't if this helps you at all but this reminds me of an urban legend (although we didn't call them that at the time) I heard when I was in high school...basically the story was that some kid in Canada had sat down on a pool drain and had his intestines pulled out of him through his you-know-what. Obvious nonsense but the kind of garbage that can grab your attention and not let go.

As an aside I found it very interesting that a previous poster said he preferred open water to pools, I find swimming in the ocean to be unsettling! (ever since Jaws?)