NORTHRIDGE : Caretaker Drowns in Swimming Pool
A 28-year-old Russian immigrant who was drinking with two friends Monday night drowned at a house where the trio worked as caretakers, authorities said.
According to his friends, Alexander Ivanov started drinking beer and later vodka with his friends about 7:30 p.m. as they sat by the pool at a quake-damaged house in the 19800 block of Lassen Avenue, said Detective Tony Foti of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Sometime before 9:30 p.m. at least one of the men went inside the house to sleep, but investigators, who spoke to the friends through a Russian interpreter, are unsure about what happened next.
About 9:30 p.m., the second friend spotted Ivanov’s body floating in the swimming pool, Foti said. The two men tried unsuccessfully to pull his body out of the pool and then summoned police to the home, Foti said.
The official cause of death is still undetermined pending a coroner’s autopsy, but investigators believe the drowning was accidental and may have been the result of the drinking binge, Foti said.
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