Pool Official Has Stroke After One Man Drowns

In a tragic chain of events Friday, an Irvine man died after losing consciousness at the bottom of a community swimming pool and during the ensuing commotion the manager of the pool collapsed from a near-fatal stroke.

About 50 people were swimming and playing in the Olympic-size pool when the man disappeared under 9 feet of water. Many of the people were young children participating in summertime swimming classes. It took a few minutes for the stricken man to be rescued, police said, party because other pool-goers at first thought he was swimming underwater.

The man, identified by police as Dinh Quan, 54, was pronounced dead on arrival at College Hospital Costa Mesa after the 4:25 p.m. incident at the Village Park Recreation Center pool in the 4500 block of Michelson Drive.

The pool manager, identified by police and relatives as Mary Hatt, 45, of Irvine, was listed in critical condition at Healthcare Medical Center of Tustin. Her husband, Daryle Hatt, who was at the pool at the time, said late Friday that his wife had suffered a stroke and was not responding to treatment.

Hatt said that his wife was on-site manager of the pool, which is operated by the Village Park Homeowners Assn. in the University Park section of Irvine. The pool is open to members and guests of the 636-home association.

Relatives of Quan declined comment when reached at the College Hospital emergency room.

An autopsy was to be conducted on Quan to determine the cause of death, Rodgers said. According to witnesses at the scene, Quan had been at the bottom of the pool for at least four minutes, police said, and was registering no pulse when rescuers pulled him out.

“You could just see that he was full of water,” said Alex Abshier, a swim instructor who dove down to retrieve the stricken man. “He was all bloated and blue.”

According to Police Sgt. Ron Flathers, one swim student was practicing in the deep end of the pool when he noticed a man lying face-down on the bottom in the deep section.

At first, Flathers said, the student thought the man was holding his breath, but then realized something was amiss. The student yelled for Abshier to help. Abshier, who was teaching a child at the shallow end of the pool, said he swam over immediately as a lifeguard sitting in a tower also ran to help.

“I saw him lying there so I carried him up to the top of the surface,” said Abshier, 20, an Irvine resident and UC Irvine student. “The lifeguard ran around the deck and helped me pull him out of the water. I yelled for someone to call 911. Then I began CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and mouth-to-mouth. But he wasn’t breathing at all. He had no pulse.”

While the rescue efforts were under way, witnesses said Hatt was excitedly telling everyone to get out of the pool. Suddenly, Flathers said, she began experiencing severe breathing problems and sat down on a lounge chair near the stricken Quan. Signy Peck, 19, a swim coach from Irvine who happened to be nearby, said Hatt appeared to be crying and was perspiring heavily.

“She looked very upset,” Peck said. “I asked, ‘Are you OK, Mrs. Hatt?’ She turned away and kind of collapsed.”

While trying to revive Quan, Abshier said he remembers hearing Peck yelling that a woman needed CPR.

“It was really scary,” Abshier said. “I was thinking, ‘What is going on?’ ”

It took Irvine police and paramedics between three and five minutes to arrive after being called, witnesses at the pool said. In the meantime, Peck and a friend visiting from Boston, Sarah Selder, 19, tried to revive Hatt. They took turns applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and checking her pulse.