Children's Safety Zone

Authorities have identified an Arizona Department of Transportation employee who was found dead in a canal last week in Chandler .Joseph Favazzo, spokesman for the Chandler Police Department, said 57-year-old Ronald Griffin was found dead Friday, Jan. 31, in a runoff canal by colleagues near Hamilton Street and Willis Road.Police said the worker’s death is not considered to be suspicious. However, authorities are waiting for the official cause of death from the Medical Examiner’s Officer as Griffin was alone at the time.Employees discovered Griffin’s body around 3 p.m. Friday. He was cleaning out an area of a runoff canal near the San Tan Freeway.The investigation is on-going and no other details were released.

via Police release identity of ADOT worker found dead in Chandler runoff canal – ABC15 Arizona.

A 2-year-old girl was released from the hospital Monday after nearly drowning in a septic tank on Sunday, according to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office.

“It’s just overwhelming that she’s perfect and I get to hold her and be with her more,” said the child’s mother Emily Howard. “I’m amazed and I love her and I’m never letting her out of my sight again, ever.”

It was reported on the 49300 block of West Papago Road, near the city of Maricopa.

Sheriff’s office spokesman Tim Gaffney said the tank had a plastic cover but it apparently collapsed when the child stepped on it.

“She was right in front of me when she fell, but I dropped to my knees and tried to grab her,” said Howard. “The water was too deep to reach where she was in the bottom, and I started screaming ‘she fell, she fell, somebody please get her out.'”

She was pulled from the tank and given CPR.

Jeff Vaughn thought he would be spending the day selling some of his crafts in Maricopa. He had no idea he would end up helping rescue a child from such a terrifying situation.

“All of the sudden someone said a little girl fell down the well,” said Vaughn.

Vaughn, who is a grandfather, said he ran toward the child’s scream and dove head first into the narrow opening and grabbed the little girl out of the tank.

At the same time, another man held onto Vaughn’s ankles and together they pulled the child out of the septic tank that was filled with raw sewage.

The child wasn’t breathing, according to Vaughn. It was then that a woman ran over and began giving the child CPR.

“After doing CPR for awhile, she started crying and that was the best thing to hear,” said Vaughn.

Paramedics transported her to Cardon Children’s Medical Center in Mesa.

Her condition is unknown, but Gaffney said she was crying on the way to the hospital.

There is a concern about infection because of the exposure to raw sewage.

A 13-month-old boy is lucky to be alive after falling into a backyard pool in Tempe Wednesday afternoon.Tempe police spokesman Mike Pooley said the incident happened around 2:15 p.m. near Guadalupe and Kyrene Roads.

via PD: 10-year-old pulls toddler from backyard pool in Tempe.

A baby was hospitalized after being found in a swimming pool not breathing on Saturday.

Phoenix Fire spokesman Tony Mure says a mother called 911 after finding her 22-month-old boy in a swimming pool near Estrella Drive and 51st Avenue.

Mure says CPR has already been started on the baby when paramedics arrived.

The boy still wasn’t breathing when he was transported to Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Shortly after 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Yuma Fire Department personnel were sent to a home in the 1100 block of Brahma Lane regarding a report of a child drowning.

YFD paramedics arrived on scene to find a Yuma police officer performing CPR on a 3-year-old boy. The child had been found in the backyard pool by family members and was removed unresponsive and not breathing. It is believed the child could have been under water for five to ten minutes.

Paramedics worked on the child at the scene, later transporting him to Yuma Regional Medical Center where further efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, YFD reported.

According to Mike Erfert, YFD spokesman, when on the scene of drowning or near-drowning incidents involving children, emergency responders often hear that the child was out of sight around water for only a few minutes or even seconds.

Arizona loses the equivalent of a classroom full of children each year to drowning, Erfert said. Some drownings occur in pools, some in rivers or lakes and others in bathtubs. Children 4 years old and younger are at the greatest risk. A child can drown in as little as an inch or two of water.

Adult supervision, barrier fencing around pools with self closing/self latching gates and CPR make up the ABCs of child drowning prevention, Erfert said. Bystanders stepping up to perform CPR have made the difference in several recent near-drowning cases.

However, this is the second recent child drowning involving a backyard pool in Yuma.