THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407080628
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
A Brooklyn, N.Y., tourist nearly became the Peninsula's fourth drowning victim in a week, this time at a Williamsburg-area hotel on Wednesday evening.
Jacqueline Bradford, 24, was not breathing when two onlookers pulled her from the pool at Patrick Henry Inn at about 9:30 p.m., but medics were able to revive her at poolside, witnesses said.
Nine-year-old Joey Kohout of Felton, Del., said he was the first into the pool once it was apparent she wasn't moving.
``I tried to tap her on the shoulder, but I ran out of breath so I had to come back up again,'' Kohout said. His sister, Jennifer, 13, first noticed there was a problem. ``I was getting ready to dive, and I just saw her at the bottom,'' Jennifer Kohout said. ``It looked like she had a grip on the drain.''
Bradford had been performing back flips and diving for the bottom of the pool when the depth of the water overwhelmed her, police said.
``She told us she got confused and lost track of the surface, and when she looked back at the top it was a lot further away than she thought it was, and she couldn't make it back,'' said Williamsburg police Maj. Mike Yost. ``She is not a swimmer, and she just overextended herself, apparently.''
The incident is the third of its kind in the area since last Thursday, when a teenager, also from Brooklyn, drowned at the Princess Anne Motor Lodge. The teen's brother, also pulled unconscious from the pool, died Saturday.
On Tuesday, a 3-year-old York County boy drowned in his grandparents' backyard pool. Bradford does not know how to swim but had received her first informal lesson from a friend at the hotel's pool on Tuesday, according to her sister, Joyce.
Bradford remained at Williamsburg Community Hospital as of Thursday evening, but she was in good spirits and ready to go home, her sister said.
``They're keeping her overnight because they have to finish clearing the water out of her lungs,'' Joyce Bradford said. She said Williamsburg Mayor Trist McConnell visited her sister in the hospital on Thursday and wished her well.
McConnell, reached at home Thursday afternoon, said the rash of swimming incidents in the region is ``exceptional'' and could have happened anywhere.
But he added that he plans to talk to hotel and motel owners about their swimming policies, to read up on state and federal pool regulations, then decide if the city needs to take any action. by CNB