Toddler Dies, 2 Injured in Pool at Unlicensed Tustin Day-Care Center

A 14-month-old boy died Friday and two toddlers were diagnosed as having suffered permanent and severe brain damage after they fell into a swimming pool at an unlicensed day-care center in Tustin that had twice been cited by Orange County officials because of inadequate fencing surrounding the pool, officials said.

Doctors said that the two surviving children were on life-support systems Friday and that their conditions had stabilized. They were expected to be taken off life support in the next few days.

“I think they will . . . live,” said Dr. Stephen Johnson, director of the pediatrics intensive care unit at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, “but they will live with severe brain damage.

Arthur Matthew Griese, 14 months, of Orange died at at Childrens Hospital of Orange County on Friday afternoon about 24 hours after he was pulled from the dirty swimming pool.

The other children were identified as Melissa Dianne Polsfoot, 19 months, of Tustin and Jonathon Derek Weston, 22 months, of North Tustin.

The children were under the care of a baby-sitter at a home in North Tustin on Thursday, police said. Johnson speculated that the toddlers fell into the pool together and had been in the water for between “five and 15 minutes” before they were pulled out by the homeowner, identified as Orvel Brooks.

Diane Brooks, who operated the baby-sitting service from her home, said the accident apparently happened while the children were left alone with her 24-year-old daughter, Carol.

“My daughter came into the house because one of them (another child) needed changing,” she said. “While she was changing the baby, the other kids somehow got through the gate.”

She said her husband then arrived home, spotted the children in the pool and went in after them, trying desperately to revive them with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Brooks said she had no idea how the toddlers had opened a gate in a fence to reach the star-shaped pool.

“We don’t know,” she said. “I know that the gate was securely latched. I can’t tell you how upset we are. I’ve lost five pounds since this happened. I know that we’re going to take a beating in the press, but we do a good job taking care of children. We’ve never had anything like this.

“It’s just one of those things that happened.”

Dianne Edwards, director of day-care licensing at the Orange County Department of Social Services, disclosed Friday that social workers had received two separate complaints about the Brooks’ baby-sitting operation, one in July, 1988, and the other last January, both of which specifically mentioned the danger posed to the children by the swimming pool.

Edwards said social workers followed up on both complaints, visited the Brooks home on each occasion and issued “cease-and-desist” orders to the family to stop caring for children until a license had been obtained and adequate fencing installed.

In both reports of the visits, Edwards said, the caseworker had cited the fence around the pool as a potential problem.

“There was fencing there,” Edwards said, “but it appears the fencing was inadequate.”

According to Edwards, the first complaint followed a neighbor’s warning that children were playing unsupervised in the back yard in an area strewn with junk and at least two abandoned cars.

The second complaint came in an anonymous letter “from a parent who said they were seeking child care for their own infant and had gone to interview the family. They wrote us to say that they felt that it was an unlicensed home. . . . The pool area was specifically mentioned” as being a hazard, Edwards said.

On Thursday the water in the pool was a murky green because of algae.

Edwards said that when social services workers visited Diane Brooks, she indicated on both occasions that she was planning to obtain a proper day-care license and in fact had attended an orientation session on licensing last August. Brooks filed initial but incomplete papers with the social services agency earlier this year, Edwards said.

On the second visit, Edwards said, the social services representative “explained she was in violation and gave the new ‘cease and desist.’ She (Brooks) said she had lost the application papers and asked for a new set, which we gave her and also followed up with a letter explaining the importance of following the regulations.”

According to Edwards, when unlicensed day-care homes continue to operate after repeated warnings and “cease-and-desist” orders, the only alternative left to the county is to go to the district attorney’s office to seek prosecution.

“We had not done that at this point,” she said. “Generally, if the individual is taking steps to comply with the application process, we try to work with them in that regard. We had not had complaints from parents in the home. We had two complaints and, based on the January visit, it appears from the case record that she had actually started the licensing process.

“Plus we have no enforcement authority. We can just go out and explain the situation.”