Girl’s Drowning Prompts Calls for Pool Safety

EL TORO —  Orange County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the drowning of a 2-year-old girl whose body was pulled from the bottom of an algae-filled pool Saturday after she apparently wandered away from her baby-sitter, authorities said Sunday.

The baby-sitter, Karen Caebel, who was also watching three other children in her home in the 24300 block of Fordview Street, noticed just before noon that Lauren Ann Nunez was missing, said Lt. Jay Mendez of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

“She went out to do something in the garage, and when she came back, the deceased was not there,” Mendez said. “She checked the pool, but there was a lot of algae in it, and she couldn’t see anything.”

“There was no pool cover or security gate surrounding the pool,” according to the report filed by deputies at the scene.

Caebel told police she probed the bottom of the pool with a tool but did not find anything. She then ran to neighbors’ houses, asking them if they had seen the missing girl. She was found after another search of the pool and was pronounced dead at Saddleback Community Hospital.

The drowning was similar to an incident earlier this month when a 16-month-old child died in a stagnant Huntington Beach pool. It brings to at least a dozen the number of children who have drowned this year in Orange County. Advocates of tighter regulations for pool safety and maintenance said Sunday that the rising death toll reinforces the need for new laws.