Boy Nearly Drowns After Slipping From Flotation Device

A 5-year-old boy was hospitalized Tuesday afternoon after he slipped unnoticed to the bottom of a swimming pool for almost a minute.

Carlton Newton was taken to the pediatric intensive care unit at Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center. A nursing supervisor would only say that his condition is stable.

Carlton was one of several children being cared for in the backyard of a house in the 500 block of Brisbaine Avenue, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. Carlton was playing in the pool when he slipped out of his flotation device, deputies said.

Cynthia Price, of Newbury Park, a day-care provider in charge of the children, was changing another child’s diaper when she saw the boy at the bottom of the pool at 2:45 p.m., deputies said.

Price pulled Carlton out of the water and tried to resuscitate him before paramedics arrived. Neither Price nor the boy lives at the house.

Paramedics said the child was unconscious and breathing when they arrived. He was revived in the ambulance, but had trouble breathing on the way to Columbia Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks. He was transferred to the Encino-Tarzana hospital, authorities said.