Girl, 2, Is in Serious Condition After Nearly Drowning in Pool

A 2-year-old girl was in serious condition Wednesday after she rode her tricycle into a back-yard swimming pool and nearly drowned, authorities said.

The unidentified toddler was rushed to Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange after two Costa Mesa police detectives revived her, Sgt. John Pherrin said.

“They were out on another call in the area,” Pherrin said. “If it wasn’t for their quick action of getting there, the outcome could have been far worse.”

Police received an emergency call from the little girl’s grandmother shortly after 3 p.m., Pherrin said.

The child was in the care of an uncle, he said, after the grandmother left to take a baby-sitter home. Apparently the toddler climbed onto her tricycle, rode out of the house to the back yard and fell into the swimming pool, he said.

When the grandmother returned, she found the child in the pool. The girl’s tricycle was in the shallow portion of the pool, and she was floating in the deep end, Pherrin said.

Her grandmother pulled her out, he said.

Detectives Darrell Freeman and Bill Redmond, both 38, were first to arrive at the house in the 2000 block of Balmoral Place. Working together, they applied cardiopulmonary resuscitation and got the girl breathing again, Pherrin said.