Fourth child in less than a week drowns in private pool

He had gone with his family to spend the day at the villa of some friends on the urbanisation Maset del Pou in Monserrat (Valencia) on Monday when he fell into their pool just after 19.00hrs, say Local Police officers.

The people who were with the child took him to the health centre in Monserrat, where employees called an ambulance staffed with paramedics, but he had already passed away by the time it reached the scene.

He is the fourth child in Spain to drown in private pools since the start of July.

The day before, an eight-year-old boy drowned in the communal swimming pool on his housing development in Cabra de Santo Cristo (Jaén province), and the day after the tragedy in Monserrat, a girl of 17 months old lost her life in a paddling pool in Priego (Córdoba province).

And on Wednesday this week, a four-year-old child drowned in the pool at the pictured Campolivar private school in Godella (Valencia province).

The children in the swimming pool were under supervision by two members of staff, who carried out first aid on him whilst awaiting the ambulance.

This arrived in a matter of minutes along with the Local Police and the boy was taken to Valencia's La Fe hospital, but died before he got there.

Two other high-profile cases of children drowning were reported last month.

The first of these, on June 4, involved two brothers and a friend, all Moroccan nationals, who were swimming in the river Miño in Salvaterra (Pontevedra province) in the north-western region of Galicia.

One of the boys fell in the water and his elder brother jumped in to rescue him, whilst their friend called for help.

The rescue attempt was initially successful, but the elder brother became swept away by the current and the younger one died in hospital hours later.

And the following day, the elder brother's body was found 100 metres downriver.

On June 14, a boy of seven drowned in the communal pool on an urbanisation in Zaragoza, in the Las Delicias neighbourhood.

He and some other children of the same age had been playing at ducking each other.

In total, 50 people across Spain drowned last month in rivers, lakes, swimming pools and the sea, both adults and children.

Emergency services warn against using lilos or inflatable dinghies in the sea, entering any natural or man-made body of water after drinking alcohol or within an hour of eating a full meal, not swimming anywhere there are no lifeguards on duty, keeping children under permanent close vigilance and wearing life-jackets when swimming in the sea.

Once again, as every summer, they stress that a red flag on a beach means bathers should not go into the sea under any circumstances and should take extreme caution where the flag is yellow, when children under 18 are not permitted to swim unless accompanied by an adult.

Lifeguards are not legally obliged to enter the water to rescue a bather in trouble when a red flag is flying, but human nature means they will rarely exercise this right and therefore also put their own lives in danger.