Year's drowning toll rises to four

Tuesday's drowning of a 2-year-old North Las Vegas boy in a backyard pool has local authorities uneasy about the coming months of hot weather now that statistics just five months into 1998 have caught up with the total number of water-related deaths for all of 1997.

A North Las Vegas Fire Department rescue team was en route at 5:06 p.m. to 1833 Badger Canyon Ave., where the toddler had slipped beneath the water's surface for an unknown period of time and never recovered, authorities said.

Discouraging to emergency personnel throughout the valley is that the child's tragedy marked the third drowning this month, and the fourth so far this year. Four people also drowned in 1997.

Investigators determined that 14-month-old Thomas Aresco's death about 4:30 p.m. Friday in the bathtub of his southwest Las Vegas home was an accident.

A third toddler who died this month is believed to have been underwater almost an hour before being discovered, authorities said. The child's 19-year-old uncle apparently had been asleep when the child went out a sliding glass door and fell into the backyard pool.

"We just have to keep reminding people how serious this situation is and how easily it can happen," said Steve La-Sky, Clark County Fire Department spokesman. "It's not even officially summer yet, and there have been as many deaths this year as last year. We don't want anyone else to die."

Statistics reveal that 90 percent of all drownings occur in private pools, and that 60 percent of the victims are boys. Afternoon remains the most high-risk time of the day -- a time when most kids are out of school playing.

Further, recent studies show that three-fourths of water-related deaths involve children age 3 and under.

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