A six-year-old girl nearly drowned in a crowded hydrotherapy pool at a Spa Castle in Queens on Friday when she got her hair got caught in an underwater filter, sources said.
EMS responded to the call at the spa on 11th Avenue near 131st Street in College Point at around 1:45 p.m. and rushed the child to Booth Memorial Hospital in serious condition, according to FDNY sources.
The youngster had been under the water for several minutes before people in the pool area noticed that she was trapped.
“I was sitting near her, but it was crowded and I was just trying to get away from the crowd,” recalled Louisa Guzman, a 54-year-old who was in the hydrotherapy body jet pool on the second floor.
“I only noticed when I heard the commotion,” she said. “I heard a woman screaming, ‘just pull her out, pull her out.’ Apparently the little girl’s hair got caught in the jet and a man, another guest, saw her floating in the water. His wife was screaming ‘just pull her hair, she won’t feel it.’ Her hair was stuck, but he pulled her hair and put her on the deck.”
When the girl was plucked out of the pool — which is 2-feet, 8-inches deep and holds a maximum of 18 people — sources said she was blue and unresponsive.
“When i saw her little blue lips I was afraid,” Guzman said. “Another guest just ran up and started performing CPR.”
That other guest was Cristy Vargas, a 28-year-old mother of two who was celebrating her husband’s birthday at the spa.
“I had been there for like 10 minutes and we were on line getting ice cream when we heard all the commotion,” she said.
“People were saying, ‘a little girl is drowning, we need help!’ I am CPR certified and my motherly instincts kicked in. I ran over and saw the girl on the floor, she was blue in the face. The man who pulled her out said her hair got tangled in the jet. I started performing CPR. I knew what I had to do. I did the breathing and the chest compressions. I just kept doing it until she started breathing and had a pulse again. I did it for about five to ten minutes. When she opened her eyes she started crying. I was so relieved.”
By the time EMS got there, the girl was “conscious, but still blue,” an FDNY source said.
Witnesses and spa officials said the child’s mother was sitting poolside when she went under, but they couldn’t confirm whether her father was there, as well.
“Her mother was sitting right in front of her. How didn’t she know?,” said Spa Castle owner, Daniel Chon. “Some guests said her daddy was drinking somewhere but i don’t know.”
Chron said the spa didn’t have any certified life guards on hand at the time — and that they weren’t required to do so.
“According to our pool safety plan, we are not required to have any lifeguards,” he said. “Any staff that is CPR certified is allowed to stay at the site but we have to patrol around periodically, that’s the requirement and that’s what we’re doing. At that point, we had three people (around the pool).”
While several witnesses said the girls’ hair had gotten caught in the underwater filter, Chron claimed there was simply no way this could have happened.
“I do not think that is possible because we have safety covers on all our jets,” he said.
But Juan Montoya, a 48-year-old Forest Hills resident who frequents the spa, disagreed.
“Yes the jet has a cover, but it has tiny holes and you can feel the suction underwater,” he said. “The child’s hair was suctioned because she was underwater. There is a sign by that pool that says you should wear a cap or have your hair in bun. Perhaps the family did not know the rules or did not speak English.”
In 2014, an elderly Forest Hills man died after he was the bottom of a hot tub at the same Queens Spa Castle.
There is no age limit to get into the Queens Spa Castle, but at the Spa Castle in Manhattan customers have to be 16 or older, according to the spa’s website.
A Department of Health spokesman said they would be looking into the incident.