THE VOICE OF THE EAST VALLEY SINCE 1891 AND WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR LOCAL REPORTING
Mesa firm tests pot for safety
THE SUNDAY
Tribune
PAGE 15
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS...............................8 EV cancer center celebrates survivors.
COMMUNITY ............... 11 Mesa artist selling her portrait of Buddhist leader.
OPINION ......................... 17 What D-Day shows we’re missing today.
EAST VALLEY
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West Mesa Edition
They help kids get college aid PAGE 11 Sunday, June 9, 2019
As temperatures rise, pools become loaded guns BY JIM WALSH Tribune Staff Writer
A
s temperatures begin to soar, drowning prevention advocates are warning that the backyard swimming pool poses about the same threat to toddlers as a loaded gun. But the pool can also become a deadly weapon for adults, as demonstrated annually by a chronic toll of avoidable deaths. Far fewer children are drowning in Arizona than 30 years ago — when the Drowning Prevention Coalition of Arizona formed to spearhead safety campaigns. Nevertheless, the prevention advocates say their goal of zero drownings remains largely unrealized — even if Scottsdale hit this elusive target last year. In a society full of distractions, they warn, complacency remains a chronic problem. Statistics show a regular pattern of children and adults perishing throughout the East Valley and across the state each year, their deaths changing the lives of grieving relatives and even �irst responders forever. Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert and Tempe recorded 18 fatal drownings last year in 63 water-related incidents, according to the
Lana Whitehead of SWIMkids USA in Mesa is president of a national organization that advocates, along with many local pediatricians, teaching infants how to swim. Here she’s working with 7-month-old Kinsley Sky Harper. Details, see page 5. Kimberly Carrillo/ Tribune Staff Photographer)
Children’s Safety Zone website. Phoenix recorded another 11 deaths in 56 water-related incidents. In 2017, the same East Valley cities recorded 17 fatal drownings in 49 water-related incidents. Phoenix had 14 fatal drownings in 2017 in 55 water-related incidents.
The number of adults drowning was higher or equal to the number of children in all East Valley cities as well as Phoenix. The adult drowning problem is far different than the classic case of a toddler tragi-
Some arrive carrying children as young as a year old. When the families arrive at the Grove, they see a cluster of gray buildings, topped with wooden panels that form the shape of a triangle at every entrance, making the scene resemble a village of cabins. The buildings are surrounded by fences made out of stacked rocks, packed together and bound by wire. The fences part in the center, revealing a coffee shop that sells lo-
cally baked goods and coffee sourced from Guatemala. To the migrants, who have by then spent days in the custody of immigration authorities without a shower or clean clothes, the place may well seem like a piece of heaven. The Grove in Chandler is one of the 15 Arizona churches receiving migrants from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
��� DROWNINGS ���� 4
EV churches help aid surge of immigrants GET OUT ...................... 20 From actor to stage manager to playwright.
COMMUNITY .......................11 BUSINESS ............................ 15 OPINION ..............................17 SPORTS ..............................18 GETOUT .............................20 CLASSIFIED ......................... 24
BY DEVAN SAUER Tribune Contributor
O
n the �irst week of the month, white Homeland Security buses pull into the parking lot of the Grove Church in Chandler, unloading dozens of migrant families. They had surrendered to Border Patrol agents after traveling thousands of miles from disadvantaged, often violent situations in Central America.
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