Accident Victims Children

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.

A 6-year-old Van Nuys boy suffered abrasions and bruises Sunday after he was caught under an electric, wrought-iron security gate, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said. The boy, whose name was not released, was taken by helicopter to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles where he was listed in fair condition, a hospital spokesman said. "He was caught under the gate as it rolled closed," said Brian Humphrey, Fire Department spokesman, "and he was free when the paramedics arrived."

A 4-year-old girl was breathing with the aid of a ventilator Saturday after her neck was caught in a car window Friday night. The child was in critical but stable condition at Antelope Valley Hospital, police said. The accident occurred about 6 p.m. in the 400 block of East Q-4 Street. The girl and her brother were in the family's car, waiting for their parents.

A 4-year-old Huntington Beach boy drowned Sunday in a neighbor's swimming pool. Cylar Moss was playing in his own backyard about 1 p.m. Sunday before he apparently climbed over a fence into his neighbor's backyard on Thunderbird Circle and fell into the pool, police said. When the boy's mother didn't see him in the backyard, she went looking for him, peered over the fence and saw him floating face down in the neighbor's pool. The neighbor called 911.

A woman was killed and a teenage boy seriously injured Thursday when a flat-bed truck collided with a car in Orange, police said. Aisheh Zidan, 55, of Anaheim was driving a 1989 Mitsubishi Galant southbound on Main Street at Katella Avenue just after 2 p.m. when the commercial truck hit the front right side of her car while making a left turn onto Katella, Orange Police Sgt. Barry Weinstein said. Zidan was fatally injured in the crash.

A 2-year-old boy drowned Tuesday in the family swimming pool after he slipped from his mother's sight and opened an unlocked back door, police said. Monica Hinojoza, 18, told police that her son, Christian Bustamontes, was with her as she was doing housework in the kitchen. But when she turned her back on him for several minutes, he managed to disappear, Santa Ana Police Sgt. Dick Faust said.

A 15-year-old Oxnard youth who was learning to swim was presumed drowned Friday in heavy surf and dangerous rip currents at unguarded and often dangerous Oxnard State Beach. The boy had been swimming with two friends for more than an hour just off the coast when strong winds and heavy swells converged to create dangerous conditions. Witnesses saw the boys clinging to one another as they fought to stay afloat and get to the beach. Oscar Tellez, 20, and his brother Luis, 16, made it to shore.

Three-year-old Catherine Mary Cessna loved climbing on her bed and looking out the window. But last March, she tripped with a drapery cord looped around her neck and died of asphyxiation. It all happened in a few seconds as Catherine's mother was nearby in the home. "This was an instance where parents supervised the child, but no one saw the activity as a threat," said Randy Black, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Fire Department.

Though it may be a comfort to parents at a Costa Mesa preschool where two children died this spring, a protective playground wall has become a point of contention in the neighborhood. Some neighbors of the Southcoast Early Childhood Learning Center on Magnolia Street complained to city officials in a meeting last week that the new brick-and-iron wall poses a traffic hazard by blocking motorists' views around the corner.

Authorities were trying to decide Sunday whether to pursue charges against the uncle of a 5-year-old boy who accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister over the weekend. The boy found a loaded shotgun under his uncle's bed while his family was visiting the man's West Covina home Saturday afternoon, police said. According to authorities, the boy fired the gun at his sister about 4 p.m., striking her in the abdomen. The toddler was taken to Childrens Hospital, where she died.