Children's Safety Zone

A 7-year-old girl drowned Saturday in an above-ground pool at her grandmother’s house in Phoenix.

Sgt. Trent Crump of Phoenix Police Department said an investigative supervisor on scene near Southern Avenue and 40th Street confirmed the girl had died.

The girl was at the residence with at least two adults and an older sibling but it took up to 20 minutes before anyone noticed she was missing, said Jonathan Jacobs, a Phoenix Fire Department spokesman.

It is unclear how long she was in the water, but firefighters were unable to locate a pulse when they arrived just after 6:20 p.m., Jacobs said.

She was taken to a hospital in extremely critical condition but later pronounced dead.

He said there was no fencing around the above-ground pool and one of the backdoors was wide open.

Crump said detectives are currently conducting an investigation of the incident.

Authorities said a 1-year-old girl was rushed to a hospital in life-threatening condition after nearly drowning during a bath Tuesday afternoon.

Tempe officers and firefighters were called to home in Tempe near Fair Lane and Vineyard Road around 3 p.m. for a reported drowning, according to Tempe Fire spokesman Mike Reichling.

Emergency crews chose to skip CPR on scene and immediately transport the unconscious girl to a local trauma unit, police said.

The toddler’s mother apparently placed the girl and her twin sister in the bathtub for an afternoon wash. Reichling said she turned on the faucet with the drain unplugged and left the room for a short time.

During her absence, the drain apparently became clogged and the tub began to fill.

When the mother returned, she found one twin standing in the completely full tub and the other submerged under water at the bottom, Reichling said.

She scooped the toddlers from the water and immediately called for help.

Authorities said the child reestablished a pulse at the hospital but remains in critical condition.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — A Glendale woman is dead after she suffered complications while in a swimming pool.

Glendale police say the 26-year-old woman was discovered Wednesday night in the pool at a friend’s house.

The friend pulled her out of the water before calling authorities.

The woman was transported to Banner Thunderbird Medical Center where she later died.

Her name hasn’t been released yet.

Police say the case is under investigation.

SALT RIVER, AZ – The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has identified a teenage swimmer who went missing and drowned in the Salt River Sunday.

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Lake Patrol reportedly pulled the body of 16-year-old Guillermo Ramos from the water around 7 p.m.

Rescuers were called to the Pebble Beach area of the Salt River around 1:30 p.m. Officials tell ABC15 the teen was swimming with his family when he tried to cross the river by himself, panicked and began yelling for help.

Witnesses on the beach said the boy went under the water and did not come back up.

“We just started hearing the mom crying out, ‘My son is drowning!'” Esteban Orrozco said.

Orrozco did not wait for emergency help to show up before jumping into action.

“Automatically we jumped in the water,” Orrozco said. “We went to try to do what we could do. This is pretty messed up.”

MCSO brought in diving teams, a helicopter and an air boat to help in the six-hour-long search.

All day long divers felt their way around the murky bottom, too dark to see their hands in front of their faces.

“If you can look at the mountain there, picture that upside down. It just goes up and down. Add in old trees, limbs, car batteries, and fishing poles, and it adds a whole new dimension to it as well,” explained diver Robert Marske.

Marske has been with sheriff’s team for years. He said the recovery of this teen’s body was one of his toughest ever.

“It was supposed to be a Happy Easter and now it’s turned into a Black Sunday,” Orrozco said.

Search and rescue divers say all swimmers need to know their limitations, and be cautious of what lies beneath the water.

Fire and rescue crews soon will be pounding the pavement to get the word out about the importance of water safety.

With a goal to reach 60,000 homes, fire personnel and volunteers “ﾔ including those in Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, Apache Junction, San Tan Valley and Queen Creek “ﾔ will be distributing informational brochures and tips door to door in partnership with Banner Cardon Children’s Medical Center, Rural Metro Fire Department, Southwest Ambulance and Salt River Project’s Safety Connection from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

With 16 fatalities from water-related incidents in the Valley this year so far, including eight in the East Valley, the agencies are encouraging people to read the literature and not throw it away. They say water safety education can help save more lives, especially in the way of having a fence around the pool, adult supervision and knowing CPR.

“It’s been an early start for drowning calls,” said Michele Long, a fire and life safety education safety specialist for the Mesa Fire Department. “We’re hearing that this is happening to people who never thought it would happen to them. We want to stress this is not about parenting skills “ﾔ it’s about a turn of the head. Toddlers can get out of your sight so quick.”

Five of the year’s East Valley water-related fatalities are children, according to statistics reported by fire departments throughout Maricopa County to Children’s Safety Zone, which monitors drowning calls. Gilbert has had two child fatalities from water-related incidents, Chandler one and Mesa two, according to the statistics.

Last year by April 30, there were no fatal drownings in the East Valley, but there were 10 fatal drownings throughout the rest of the Valley, including five children, according to the statistics.

In fact, the leading cause of death for children in Arizona ranging in age from 1 to 4 are drownings, the statistics show.

In many cases, although parents keep a watchful eye over children during family events around swimming pools, all it takes is a turn of the head, two inches of water or someone not knowing how to swim to create a dangerous scenario if a small child or an adult falls into a swimming pool, bathtub and most recently, the Salt River in east Mesa. On Sunday, the body of a 16-year-old boy was recovered; he apparently drowned trying to swim across a 50-foot stretch across the river on Pebble Beach near the Blue Point Bridge, in Rural/Metro Fire Department’s jurisdiction. Witnesses saw the boy go under about 1 p.m., but nobody could get to him or find him, said Mark Cichocki, a Rural/Metro spokesman.

At least one East Valley family was lucky after one recent water-related incident, but rescue officials stress that’s a rare outcome.

The morning of April 17 began busier than normal for a Sunday at the home of Suzanna Saghin in east Mesa: Nine-year-old Tristin Saghin was inside the house playing a video game. His mother Kimberly had just finished combing the hair of Brooke Saghin, Tristin’s 2-year-old sister, and was folding sheets as they were getting ready to head out for the day. Suzanna, their grandmother, was taking a shower. Then it hit them like a ton of bricks “ﾔ “Where is the baby?” Kimberly asked.

Unknown to all of them, Brook Saghin was outside and had fallen into the family pool. She was found floating in the water, not breathing “ﾔ and it wasn’t known how long she had been in it.

That weekend, there were at least four drowning calls in the Valley alone, including the fatality of a 3-year-old girl at a Mesa home the day before. The Saghin incident was the only one with a positive outcome; after Brooke’s mother pulled her out of the pool, Tristin performed CPR on her “ﾔ something he learned from watching the movie “Black Hawk Down.” The boy’s actions proved pivotal in saving his sister’s life before emergency crews arrived and took her to the hospital.

“This could’ve happened to anyone, but we never thought it could’ve happened to us,” said Brooke’s father, Chris Saghin, who flew into Arizona from the family’s home in Las Vegas when he was informed of the incident. Earlier this month, the mother of an 11-month-old girl pulled her from a bathtub in Tempe after the child’s mother left her unattended with the water running, but it didn’t drain out of the tub properly.

The child remains in critical condition, according to information from the Tempe Police Department.

“No body of water is safe,” said Cichocki.”We want to get the word out to stress the importance of adult supervision and fences around pools. Drownings can happen to anybody, anywhere, anytime, but with people being educated on water safety, it can better be prevented.”

Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or msakal@evtrib.com