Baby Drowns in Pool; Sister Near Death

A toddler drowned and his sister clung to life after the two apparently clambered up a ladder and fell into a backyard pool during a family get-together Sunday at their aunt’s Rancho Cucamonga home, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Eddie Figueroa, 18 months old, died after being rushed to San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland. His sister, Angelica, 2, was airlifted Sunday night from the hospital to Loma Linda University Medical Center, which has a specialized unit for injuries to children, according to the Sheriff’s Department. Both are from Los Angeles, sheriff’s officials said.

Authorities said seven adults and an unknown number of children were in the home on the 7500 block of Layton Street when a 10-year-old cousin found the two at the bottom of a 3-foot-deep above-ground pool shortly after 5 p.m.

Sheriff’s officials said they believe a ladder leading into the pool had been left in place after family members swam earlier in the day. “The ladder had to be down for them to get in--we know that for a fact,” said Sgt. Joe Perea of the Sheriff’s Department.

The toddlers had been in the water for about 15 minutes before they were found, according to Perea. Sheriff’s officers, responding to a 911 call at 5:23 p.m., administered CPR, as did ambulance attendants who rushed the children to the hospital.

A family member at the home, owned by Ruben Gutierrez, would not comment on the incident. But relatives who gathered at San Antonio Community Hospital issued cautions about the deadly combination of children and pools.

“You say it’s not going to happen to me; never say never,” said a woman who identified herself as the sister of the victims. “Tell people not to put pools in their houses,” her husband added. “We don’t want other families to go through this.”

Drowning is the second leading cause of death for children younger than 15, and accounted for 1,003 juvenile deaths in 1998, the last year for which complete data were available, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

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Times staff writer Geoff Mohan contributed to this story.