How could he drown?

Mother blames Great America park for death of her 4-year-old son in 2 feet of water in wave pool

Yolanda Flores sat in the garage of a family member's home in south San Jose on Friday, swathed in black, hugging her remaining 2-year-old son to her chest, and blamed the Great America amusement park in Santa Clara for the drowning of her 4-year-old boy.

Flores disputed key elements of the park's account of how the tragedy unfolded Thursday at the Great Barrier Reef wave pool, an expanse of churning water about half the size of a football field, where she had let the 4-year-old boy, Carlos Alejandro Flores, play unattended.

Park officials said six lifeguards were on duty when one spotted Carlos around 2:30 p.m. near the middle of the pool, where the water is about 2 feet deep when waves aren't rolling through. At its deepest point, the pool is 6 feet deep.

Flores, 27, said there were only four lifeguards at the pool at the time and that her 8-year-old daughter, Jasmine, was the one who spotted the boy underwater after he apparently had been there for several minutes.

"That's a lie that there were six," Flores said. "There's four lifeguards there. How can they not see my son? There's three walking and one sitting. They weren't doing their job. He was in 2 feet of water. How could he drown?

"I want this to be known," Flores said between sobs. "I want to warn all parents that they need to watch their kids at all times, because (Great America) doesn't do their job."


" the tragedy unfolded Thursday at the Great Barrier Reef wave pool, an expanse of churning water about half the size of a football field, where she had let the 4-year-old boy, Carlos Alejandro Flores, play unattended."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/14/MNGMKR0LJS1.DTL


I'm sorry and hate me if you will but Yolanda Flores has No One to blame but herself.

It must be nice to be able to know exactly what happened in a situation without even being there.

It's a shame that a child had to die to teach a mother why we don't take our 4-year-olds to public pools and let them be out of our sight long enough for them to potentially drown in the first place.

That made me laugh.

Dude. If the kid can't swim, and has easy access from the "shallows" to the deep end, he should be wearing a flotation device. Whether this is the park's fault for not requiring it or the mother's fault for not putting him in one if she knew he couldn't swim... hard to say.

She should of never let the kid get completely out of sight. With my nephews and niece i am never more than 10-20ft away from them when we are at a water park. And the two youngest wear floating body suits. but i would like to think that if some how one of them escaped my eye for a second that i could trust life guards to keep them safe for me.

" the tragedy unfolded Thursday at the Great Barrier Reef wave pool, an expanse of churning water about half the size of a football field, where she had let the 4-year-old boy, Carlos Alejandro Flores, play unattended."

Wave pools can get packed. It would be very, very easy to miss a small child that shouldn't be in there to begin with go under.

That the woman wants to hold the park responsible is disgusting. She's just an overgrown child herself with no sense of responsibility.

Yeah, what would her punishment be? You know, besides losing her child and everything. . .
I'm sure you've never made a mistake before. How about having just a tiny bit of sympathy.

This is way beyond a simple mistake. The level of irresponsibility and bad judgemt involved here, even if you accept the mother's version of events, is astounding. It is certainly a great tragedy but this woman should be prosecuted and her fitness as a parent evaluated. This is equivalent to the people who lock their kids in the car in 100 degree heat.

If nothing else...this incident really paints a picture of the "can't somebody else do it?" attitude that an increasing number of American people possess.

What I do wonder, though, is that if Ms. Flores had the presence of mind to not only count the lifeguards...but actually track their movements...why didn't just watch her child?

I'm not a parent...so I'm not making out like I know everything about BEING a parent. However...I have been in charge of young kids before...like when I took my nephew to Yankee Stadium.

While we were picking up our tickets & making our way to our seats...I had my finger hooked through his belt & never lost contact with him. I got up and accompanied him to the mens room every time he said he had to go...even when he protested that he was big enough to go alone.

He was never out of my sight...and rarely out of physical contact.

also....two feet of water is easily enough to drown. It only takes a few inches.

I feel very , very bad for her. What a horrible tragedy.
I don't know how I feel about charging her with any crimes, but ultimately I think as a parent the health and safety of your child is your responsibility.
No matter how many lifeguards were on duty, Great America Water Parks wave pool is not a Daycare.
I'm sure it will be very difficult to accept responsibility for the death of her child, and I imagine she will go through several phases before, if ever, she comes to grip with what happened. I would fully expect her to initially want to blame everyone in the world but herself.
Hopefully she will eventually accept it rather than use it as an excuse for a big fat blame game and lawsuit down the road.

I wonder if they allow alcohol in that water park. I have visions of the mother having a few cold ones with her new baby daddy while her kid drowned.

Anyone who can't spare any sympathy for a mother who's just lost her child isn't worthy of being called human.

You people should be fucking ashamed of yourselves.

That's all I'm going to bother saying.

Get off your high horse...seriously.

Not being emotionally involved in the situation affords the rest of us to look at it objectively.

Clearly, this is not a joyous occasion. Even more clear is the fact that nobody is dancing around the maypole....singing gloriously "Ding-dong-the-kid-is-dead".

Your self-righteous indignation is more appalling to me than this story.

The fact that you think that Zarth's indignation is more appalling than a kid drowning pretty much says it all.

Instead of talking about that, everyone's just trying to score some points against a mother who fucked up. Typical internet know-it-alls.

Just in time to speak up for your boyfriend.

You have no idea how I deal with death...and I'll thank you to not assume that you do.

It's a tragedy that the child drowned. If the quite possibly negligent mother wasn't very publicly going after the deep pockets, people would probably have a lot more sympathy for her.

This is far cry from a clear cut case of corporate negligence. Would you leave your four-year old in a big wave pool unattended, counting on a few lifeguards who also have to keep an eye on everyone else?

I don't know what happened so I'm not passing judgement... just noting that it's difficult for someone to broadcast public righteous outrage if they were contributors to the event.

Zing! I'm gay. Nice one.

False dichotomy.

How about watching your kids all the time because it's your job to make sure they are safe? Not just at Great America, but everywhere?

I'm sorry, but I have little sympathy for her.

Case in point: the mother declined to fit the child with a life vest, which the park had available.

Do you know something specific? Because that sounds like something that the courts should decide.

No, probably not

But that is EXACTLY what people are doing when they call the woman a child, which is what people have done in this thread

I would imagine that losing a child like this makes one do things that might not seem to be totally rational. I'm sure she's aware of her own responsibility.

There are safety standards at public amusement parks, do we know that Six Flags didn't violate them? No, and that's what the court case is about.

My sympathy is with the dead child as well as with this woman's other child, who will grow up with this person as his parent.