Toddlers Unconscious : Nurse’s Training Helps Save Lives of 2 Girls in Spa

As she feverishly pumped breath back into the two toddlers lying without a pulse beside her back-yard spa, Terry Haytack saw her daughter’s life flash before her.

But when she pulled the unconscious girls from the water and began simultaneous cardiopulmonary resuscitation, her 18 years of experience as a registered nurse came back in a rush.

“They were taking their first breaths on their own” by the time paramedics arrived Wednesday at her home in Orange, Haytack recalled Thursday.

Haytack’s 21-month-old daughter, Kathleen, and 18-month-old Molly Ahmann, whom Haytack baby-sits, were discharged Thursday from Childrens Hospital of Orange County after an overnight stay. Both were in fair condition when they arrived at the hospital in Orange Wednesday and were in good condition Thursday morning when they were released, doctors said.

Attending physician Dr. Gary Goodman said the girls would have died had Haytack not acted immediately.

“It’s really remarkable that she did an effective job on two kids,” Goodman said.

The 39-year-old mother was baby-sitting the children when she stepped into another room across the hall to change clothes late Wednesday morning. In the less than five minutes she was gone, the pair toddled from their playroom, across the dining and living rooms and somehow got past a sliding screen door to the back yard, where one of Haytack’s older children was playing.

“When I didn’t hear their little voices I went looking and called for them on the patio,” Haytack said. Then she saw Molly floating on her back in the spa. Kathleen was at the bottom.

As she jumped fully clothed into the spa, Haytack said, she thought both girls had drowned. “I really thought a part of my life was gone. They were both blue.”

She began CPR at once. “I (alternately) did chest compressions on one” while blowing breath into the other.

Her eyes still red from a sleepless night at the hospital, Haytack said Thursday that she felt as if 10 years had passed in 24 hours.

Cradling her sleeping daughter in her arms as she sat in a hospital ward at Childrens Hospital, she said: “It was the most horrible thing to ever experience. . . . I feel very old right now. In those few seconds of pulling them out, (Kathleen’s) whole life passed in front of me.”

Goodman noted that drowning is the leading cause of death of children under age 5 in the county.

More than 70% of drownings of children under 5 in the county occur in back-yard pools and spas, according to National Drowning Prevention Network president Dollie Brill.

Seven county youngsters under age 5 drowned in 1987, down from a record high of 20 deaths in 1986, officials said. So far this year, two children have died from drowning, according to Lelonnie Sylvester of the county sheriff-coroner’s office.

Brill also cited a national study released last year by the Consumer Products Safety Commission, which said that the victims in 46% of drowning or near-drowning incidents involving children under age 5 were last seen inside the house.

The child drowning rate is expected to soar around Memorial Day, Brill said, adding that parents should regard swimming pools and spas as dangerous, life-threatening, much as they would view a gun or a knife.

“And every parent should know CPR,” she said.

Childrens Hospital officials said pool safety instruction sessions are scheduled in coming weeks. Classes will be held May 21 at both CHOC and Saddleback Hospital & Health Center in Laguna Hills, and May 22 at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

The Haytacks’ spa had “just been filled over the weekend,” Terry Haytack said, adding that she has long felt that their spa “is unsafe” with young children around.

It will now be covered, if not taken out altogether, she said.

Tim Ahmann, Molly’s father, said Thursday, “I am really thankful to Terry for saving her (Molly’s) life . . . grateful that she knew what to do.”

Ahmann added that Haytack’s quick action proves her ability to care for children. “We wouldn’t want any other sitter to take care of her,” he said. “She (Molly) is so little and starts getting into things.”