Woman Drowns in Pool; Girl Is on Life Support

A 23-year-old woman drowned and a young girl was on life support Saturday after they were found near the bottom of an Aliso Viejo community pool.

An electrician who lives in the surrounding apartment complex jumped into the water to rescue the pair, eventually fishing them out with a shepherd’s hook. He and other bypassers performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the woman and the 4-year-old girl.

Paramedics were called to the scene, an apartment complex in the 23000 block of Los Grandes, at 12:10 p.m. and found the two victims in full cardiac arrest, Orange County Fire Capt. Paul Hunter said.

Police spent most of Saturday trying to identify the victims and at one point even called in a bloodhound unit in hopes of tracking the pair to their initial location.

Police later identified the woman as Juana Recendez Nieto, who lived at the complex. The name of the girl, and her relationship with Nieto, was not released. Investigators identified Nieto after finding a set of keys among her possessions. They went apartment by apartment until they found a door her key opened.

Police were unsure how the drowning occurred. Many children streamed to the pool later in the day, but there were few people near the pool area at midday and no witnesses to the tragedy, residents and authorities said.

The rescuer, Kenny King, 45, said he saw the pair playing in the pool just 12 minutes before he pulled them out.

When he returned with two of his sons, he saw the two bodies in the water. At first he thought Nieto and the child were merely floating on the surface--and said their arm movements suggested they were alive. But as he got closer, King said, he realized they were actually submerged, and their movements were probably caused by the waves in the pool.

He quickly opened the locked gate with his key and jumped in.

“The little girl was in the 8-foot end, and the lady was in the 6-foot end. They were both floating on their backs,” King said.

He tried to pull them out but could not lift them. Finally, King clambered out of the pool and used a shepherd’s hook to pull the two out.

“I was in constant prayer as I tried to get them out,” King said.

The whole time, King was screaming for help, and other residents eventually came running. Police and paramedics arrived shortly after, King said.

As he and others resuscitated the little girl, she showed occasional signs of life, he said.

The girl was taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center and is in critical condition and on life support, police said.

Nieto was taken to Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, where she was pronounced dead at 12:55 p.m., hospital spokeswoman Jennifer D’Andrea said.

Residents at the sprawling apartment complex just north of Moulton Parkway said they had never seen Nieto and the child before. The child was wearing a bathing suit--the woman, shorts and a tank top, one witness said.

The pool is in the middle of an almost park-like community of single-family housing units. On Saturday, the neighborhood was nearly deserted and few people were aware of what happened.

“Somebody’s going to get a terrible call tonight,” said Juan Ortiz, a neighborhood resident.