OJAI : Boy Dies at Hospital After Rescue From Creek’s Drain Pipe

A 10-year-old Ojai boy who was rescued from a creek he fell into while on a school field trip later died at the hospital, authorities said Saturday.

Simon Cranes was pronounced dead at 11 p.m. Friday at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, said Chester Wheeler, a nursing supervisor. The cause of death was drowning, Wheeler said.

Simon was panning for gold with his father and classmates Friday afternoon when he slipped and fell into a creek in Horn Canyon, east of Ojai, on the grounds of Thacher School, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Lt. Paul Anderson.

“He fell in, he got tangled in some plastic and he went into a pipe,” Anderson said. The sheet of plastic and the rushing current pinned one of Simon’s legs in the drainage pipe and the boy was underwater for an unknown period of time until someone discovered him, Anderson said.

The creek water was about three feet high and the current was unusually strong, said Tom Bray, a Thacher School senior who pulled Simon from the pipe.

When Simon was rescued from the pipe, he was unconscious and not breathing, Bray said.

Three women were trying to give Simon cardiopulmonary resuscitation while his leg was still in the pipe, Bray said.

Simon was taken to Ojai Valley Community Hospital and later airlifted to Valley Presbyterian Hospital.

The field trip was authorized by the San Antonio Elementary School in Ojai, where Simon was a fourth-grade student, said Joe DeVito, school principal.

Simon’s teacher took about 30 school children and several parents on the trip to study geology and other subjects, DeVito said.