EL TORO : Investigation Opens in Girl’s Drowning

Orange County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the drowning of a 2-year-old girl, whose body was pulled from the bottom of an algae-filled pool after she apparently wandered from her baby-sitter, Sheriff’s Department officials said Sunday.

The death of Lauren Ann Nunez brings to at least a dozen the number of children who have drowned this year in Orange County.

The girl was being cared for Saturday afternoon in the 24300 block of Fordview Street while her mother was at work, sheriff’s officials said. The baby-sitter, Karen Caebel, was watching three other children at the same time in her home, and noticed just before noon that Lauren had wandered off, Sheriff’s Lt. Jay Mendez said.

“She went out to do something in the garage, and when she came back, (Lauren) was not there,” Mendez said. “She checked the pool, but there was a lot of algae in it, and she couldn’t see anything.” Also, “there was no pool cover or security gate surrounding the pool,” according to the report filed by deputies at the scene.

Caebel told police that she probed the bottom of the pool with a tool but did not find anything. She then ran to neighbors’ houses, asking them if they had seen the missing girl.

One neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said she saw Caebel driving slowly up and down the street, apparently searching for the girl. About 20 minutes later, Caebel came to the neighbor’s house and asked whether they had seen the toddler.

While Caebel was searching the neighborhood, the girl’s mother, Angela Nunez, arrived from work, where Caebel had called her, and joined the search. Sheriff’s officers said Nunez rents a room at that house.

A neighbor also helped the women and checked the pool again, this time using a pool skimmer with an extension, Mendez said. “That’s when they found her,” he added. “They brought her out and tried CPR. . . . They placed her on the hood of a car while they were trying to resuscitate her, and that’s where the deputies found her.”

Deputies took over trying to revive the girl until paramedics arrived and took her to Saddleback Memorial Medical Center. She was pronounced dead at 1:10 p.m., Mendez said. Autopsy results were not available Sunday afternoon.

“We’re still continuing the investigation on this,” he said, adding that deputies will again interview witnesses. “Everyone was hysterical yesterday. It’s real tragic at the time.”

The drowning was reminiscent of a similar tragedy this month, when a 16-month-old child died in a stagnant Huntington Beach swimming pool. Advocates of tighter regulations for pool safety and maintenance said Sunday that the rising death toll reinforces the need for new laws.

“Here’s two drownings in a row where the pools were poorly maintained,” said Jim Landis, founder of Children’s Pool Safety Assn., a group pushing for local laws to make pools safer. “I think the message here is that if you have a pool you have to keep it clean. . . . That will be part of our model ordinance.”