'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

flores_0005_df.jpg This is a copy picture of Carlos Alejandro Flores, 4, who drowned yesterday at Great America. Photo Courtesy of the Flores family after serving 16 yea5rs Ran on: 07-14-2007 Carlos Alejandro Flores, 4, drowned Thursday at Great America amusement park in Santa Clara. less flores_0005_df.jpg This is a copy picture of Carlos Alejandro Flores, 4, who drowned yesterday at Great America. Photo Courtesy of the Flores family after serving 16 yea5rs Ran on: 07-14-2007 Carlos ... more Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close '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 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

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."

Great America officials insisted six lifeguards had been on duty at the wave pool. Lifeguards and paramedics tried to resuscitate Carlos before he was taken to Kaiser Medical Center in Santa Clara, where he was pronounced dead.

"We expressed the deepest sympathies to her and her family and her family friends for what has happened," park spokesman Gene Frugé said. "She is mistaken. There were certainly six lifeguards on duty."

Frugé said company policy also requires six lifeguards to be present before the wave pool is opened.

"We just want to let her know that safety is our No. 1 priority," Frugé said. "We won't open any attraction unless we feel it's safe."

Flores said she had not been in the pool with her son at the time and does not know how he drowned. The 4-year-old had been in the water earlier, got out to eat some chips and went back in, she said.

When he didn't return within 10 minutes, she said, she became concerned and told her daughter to find him. After Jasmine told her mother she couldn't see the boy, both started toward the pool, where Jasmine ultimately found him underwater, Flores said. The girl's screams attracted the lifeguards' attention, she said.

Great America has no age or height requirements for children at the wave pool. "We do recommend that children under 4 feet tall use life vests, and we have them readily available," Frugé said. "There is no official rule that requires it."

Carlos was 4 feet tall, his mother said. He was not wearing a vest but might not have been required to if the recommended height rule were mandatory.

Mechanized wave pools at water parks are largely unregulated by the state beyond annual inspections, officials said Friday as police and state inspectors began investigations into the boy's death.

There are no state requirements governing the number of lifeguards that must be on duty, nor are there age or height restrictions, said Kate McGuire, a spokeswoman for the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There is no requirement that children wear personal flotation devices.

Safety recommendations are outlined by an individual attraction's manufacturers, and state inspectors check to see if those guidelines are being followed, McGuire said. Great America's wave pool passed an unannounced state inspection three days before Carlos drowned, McGuire said.

The Santa Clara County coroner's office completed an autopsy on the boy Friday but refused to release the cause of death until the investigation is complete.

The Great Barrier Reef wave pool will remain closed indefinitely as the investigations continue, but the rest of Boomerang Bay water park at Great America reopened Friday, Frugé said.

Bill Avery, an aquatic safety consultant in Orlando, Fla., who formerly worked for several amusement parks, said adult supervision is crucial during water play.

"It gets down to some basic personal responsibility," Avery said. "People have to remain cognizant when kids are involved, I don't care what activity they're involved in. . . . As a father and grandfather, a 4-year-old with me in the water is not going to be more than a handgrip away from me at any time."

Anne Crawford, a San Francisco mother of three who brought her family to Great America's wave pool last month, described a crowded experience where swimmers were buffeted by the waves and people in rented inner tubes.

"It was amazingly crowded; we had two parents looking after one 7-year-old," Crawford said. "Once the waves started, it was hard to stay together. . . . The inner tubes are really a hazard to other guests because it is really easy to get trapped between several tubes as you bounce around in the waves."

Crawford said she saw lifeguards on the side of the pool but no lifeguards in the shallow entry area.

"At a minimum, Great America should require all kids 6 and under wear life vests in the wave pool, and that an adult accompany them in the water," Crawford said. A park spokesman said Great America does recommend that parents accompany young children.

Requiring flotation devices at a pool would be rare, if not unprecedented, in the country and difficult to enforce, said Brett Petit, a spokesman for Palace Entertainment in Newport Beach (Orange County), which owns nine water parks in several states including Raging Waters in San Jose.

"Where do you draw the line?" Petit said. "If a kid is splashing around in the shallows, does the kid need to have a life jacket on?"

Drowning is the leading cause of death for children 5 and under in California, according to the San Mateo County Health Department. There have been no drowning deaths in water-park wave pools in the state in at least five years, McGuire said.

At least six people have drowned in wave pools around the world since 2000, according to press accounts.

Parents have to "be vigilant all the time" with children in pools, said Sue Sherman, a spokeswoman for Lifesaving Society, a Canadian water safety group.

"That includes lifeguarded circumstances," Sherman said. "The lifeguard is your safety net. The first person that's responsible is the adult that takes those children to the pool."