Toddler’s Curiosity May Have Killed Him : Tragedy: Juan Carlos Quintana, who drowned in neighbor’s pool, was a very active and inquisitive child, say his parents. They are left mourning their only child, the seventh such death in the county this year.

Few toddlers can dance the quebradita, but at 2 1/2, Juan Carlos Quintana could dance circles around older children.

Juan was an extraordinarily active, inquisitive boy, his parents said, so it was no surprise that he picked up the steps to the Mexican country-Western style banda dance--a craze in many clubs--so quickly.

But Juan’s precociousness became his undoing Monday night, when he wandered into a neighbor’s yard on the quiet street in the Riverview West section of Santa Ana where his family lives, fell into a murky swimming pool and drowned. He was the young couple’s only child.

“He loved to play and have fun,” said his mother, Maria Quintana, in a tearful interview Tuesday. “I guess he loved it too much.”

Quintana said she had seen Juan playing ball in front of her house shortly before he disappeared. After a quick search proved fruitless, she and her brother-in-law, Joaquin, enlisted the help of neighbors. Juan’s father was working at the time.

After 10 minutes of hunting for Juan, the searchers found him in the next-door neighbor’s yard.

“I thought of the pool, and I thought for certain that he was there,” Quintana, 23, said.

Yolanda Pineda, who lives in the home with the pool, tried unsuccessfully to find Juan by poking through the brackish waters with a pole. But the searchers did not find the boy until Pineda’s 12-year-old daughter, Mirna, dived into the pool and felt his body near the bottom, Pineda said.

Juan was taken to Garden Grove Hospital, where he was was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.

Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton said that investigators are treating the drowning as an accident and that no criminal charges will be filed unless someone comes forth with more information to the contrary.

“If somebody . . . told us the child was forced into the pool, it would be a different story,” Helton said. “But there’s nothing to indicate that.”

Juan was the seventh child to drown in a swimming pool or spa this year in Orange County.

The boy’s father, also named Juan Quintana, complained that the neighbor’s gate was left open, allowing their son access to the Pinedas’ pool. The Pinedas said their gate was often left open so they could park their cars in their driveway and children could go in and out.

On Tuesday, friends and family members dropped by the Quintana home throughout the afternoon, bringing flowers and offering condolences, while the dead child’s brown-and-white puppy, Jack, moped around the back yard. A former landlord who took a shine to Juan had given the puppy to him, his father said.

A funeral in Santa Ana was scheduled for today. Although Juan was born in California, his father will take the boy to the family’s home state of Guerrero, Mexico, the next day for burial.

The Quintanas moved to the white stucco house on Jackson Street from a home in Garden Grove about a month ago, they said. Maria’s mother, Gloria Figueroa, found a house nearby so she could visit her grandson.

The Quintanas came from the same city in Mexico several years ago but did not get to know each other until they were in Orange County. Days after they moved into their rented Santa Ana home in May, Maria’s father died in Mexico.

But the move to a nicer neighborhood in Santa Ana was a step up for Juan Quintana, 28, a cook who works part time at a Denny’s restaurant in Irvine and full time at a cafe in Orange. He and Maria, a machine operator at a plastics manufacturer, liked the warm, family-oriented neighborhood.

And little Juan seemed to be flourishing, his father said. He had many playmates, and liked to dance with girls who lived nearby.

“He would say, ‘Grandma, this is how you dance the quebradita ,’ and he would dance around in front of me,” Figueroa said as the family sat together on couches in the living room Tuesday.

Joaquin Quintana, the dead boy’s uncle, nodded and noted Juan’s fondness for little cowboy boots--the footwear of choice for quebradita dancers--as well as his sense of humor and his ability to pick up skills in a snap.

Juan’s father listened quietly to the words and leaned back on the flowered sofa. “He was so intelligent,” he said, and rubbed his eyes. “Our son.”