Children's Safety Zone

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.

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.

Near Drowning Puts Child in Critical Condition: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

PHOENIX – An 18-month-old child is in the intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital in central Phoenix, after being pulled from a swimming pool.

The little girl is in critical condition. She apparently squeezed through a doggy door and fell into a relative’s backyard pool, near 32nd Avenue and Sweetwater.

The 18-month-old little girl wasn’t breathing when she was rescued from a backyard pool around 5:00 p.m. Tuesday.

“En route we were doing everything for her, breathing for her and providing chest compressions to try and resuscitate her,” says Fire Capt. Scott Walker.

There was no barrier around the pool, and it appears it hadn’t been cleaned in awhile. Investigators tell us the toddler was visiting relatives when she slipped through the doggy door and fell in.

She may have been underwater for as long as 2 minutes before a family member found her.

“That’s what we typically see is, there’s a lot of people in a home, someone gets distracted, somebody thinks somebody else is watching their child, child gets lost in shuffle.”

There were as many as 8 children and 3 adults, including the toddler’s mother, inside this home at the time.

We’re told a motorcycle officer made it to the scene first and immediately began performing CPR.

For him this call was especially heartbreaking, because he has an 18-month old child at home.

“We just have to make sure if you have a pool, you have a huge responsibility to make sure its protected and you’re doing everything you can to make sure this doesn’t happen,” says Capt. Walker.

The child is on a ventilator as of Tuesday night.

PHOENIX — In the wake of yet another drowning, the Phoenix Fire Department is reminding parents of the need to watch children around water at all times.

Capt. Jonathan Jacobs of the Phoenix Fire Department showed Tess Rafols some simple things you can do to keep the little ones from tumbling into that backyard swimming pool.

Most drownings and near drownings happen in swimming pools, but there are other hazards. Bath tubs, wading pools, hot tubs, toilets and even buckets can also be dangerous, especially to toddler and infants. A child can drown in as little as 1 inch of water.

While there are many different kinds of drowning dangers for kids, many of which don’t seem obvious right away, swimming pools remain by far the biggest issue.

Twenty Maricopa County children drowned last year. All but two of those incidents happened in a swimming pool.

Everybody should know the ABCs of water safety.

A – Adult supervision
When it comes to keeping kids safe around water, the most important thing is adult supervision. Adults should have eye-to-eye contact with kids at all times.

B – Barriers
While there is no substitute for adult supervision, fences and locking gates can go a long way in keeping kids out of the swimming pool.

C – Classes
Not only should children take swimming lessons (although lessons in no way replace supervision), adults should be trained in CPR in case the unthinkable should happen.

There have already been 19 drowning incidents in Maricopa County this year. Fourteen of those were fatal.

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