Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 21

I FLORIDA TODAY, Saturday. August 9, 1986 9BZ Family recalls horror after pool electrocutes friend By Kevin Rlordan FLORIDA TODAY MANTUA, N.J. Ricky Less-cure can't remember much because it happened so quickly. One moment, he and five friends were enjoying his family's swimming pool on a hot summer night Seconds later "everyone was screaming" as electricity surged around the edge of the pool. It killed 16-year-old Michael Wargo and jeopardized the lives of the other three youngsters in the well-kept neighborhood of modest homes.

It is the kind of neighborhood where youngsters often gather at each other's homes. Shortly after 9 p.m. on July 30, Ricky Lescure, Michael Wargo, two other boys and two girls decided to go for a swim. "My brother and sister-in-law and I had just gotten out of the pool," Nancy Lescure said. "We weren't out 20 or 30 minutes.

The kids waited for us to get out. They let us enjoy it and then we let them enjoy it The kids always enjoyed swimming with the lights." Sometime around 9:30 p.m., Ricky and another youngster had climbed out of the pool, while Wargo and the three others remained in the water. Then, without a sound or visible sparks, with no flickering of lights or other warning, the metal coping around the perimeter of the pool became electrified. "I heard screaming," Lescure's mother said. "It was very unusual, because they were usually very quiet I was upstairs.

I looked out the window where I could see the whole pool, but I didn't realize it was as serious as it was. I ran downstairs. When I saw Michael, I realized it wasn't a joke." One of the youngsters was clinging to the fiberglass diving board. The other two were screaming in the center of the pool. Wargo, a soccer player and student at Clearview Regional High School, apparently tried to hoist himself out of the water at the shallow end.

He had grabbed the coping with both hands. "They were yelling to me, 'shut off the One of them touched the side and said 'It's electric' "I don't remember much," of what followed, Lescure said, adding that he opened the door of the shed housing the pool machinery and; flicked a switch that cut power to-the lights. "It was so fast," Mrs. Lescure said. "It was only a matter of-seconds.

I wouldn't say more than five seconds. Once the lights were-out they could get out of the pool. IZ ran out to the gate and one of them-; said 'Call an ambulance, he's The ambulances seemed to come in seconds." The investigation by theZ Gloucester County prosecutor's of- fice and township police has placed -the blame for Wargo's death on improper and aged electrical work; at the pool. i ACROSS THE NATION water. Only quick thinking by the three, and fast action by Lescure, prevented additional deaths.

Friday, eight days after the tragedy, 16-year-old Ricky Lescure and his mother, Nancy, talked about that night The house where the Lescure family has lived for 28 years is in a Waste sites contaminate arms facility Associated Press WASHINGTON Nuclear waste activities at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina have produced high contamination levels inside the boundaries of the weapons facility but little environmental impact outside them, congressional investigators said Friday. A General Accounting Office study, released by Sen. Ernest Hollings, said there is a remote possibility that waste sites at the plant could someday contaminate the Tuscaloosa aquifer, the main source of water for South Carolina and Georgia. "This study confirms that long-term contamination does exist at the Savannah River Plant," Hollings said in a statement. "While these problems do not pose an immediate health threat, I am pleased to see that the Department of Energy and DuPont are working hard to correct them." DuPont operates the nuclear weapons plant for the department.

GAO said the department has taken steps to limit further contamination at the plant and is considering action to clean up the facility. GAO said its two-year study found that from 1980 through 1984, streams running through the plant's property showed "elevated levels of radioactivity." "We have determined that groundwater was highly contaminated with radioactivity at the low-level waste burial ground, some of the seepage basins and the high-level waste tank farm," the report said. "Large amounts of soil have also been contaminated at these waste sites," it added. "However, DuPont's evaluations show that, except from tritium, there has been very little movement of the radionuclides because of the retention capability of the soil around the sites." Only 11.99 Celebrate the feeling of 100 cotton with these fashionable short sleeve shirts. Women can if choose from an array of oversized solid colored X.

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thru Sat. 10am til 9pm Sun 12 noon till 5pm 1 ILHH 6 1 1 1 1 1 jz Test ban plan may hurt SDI By William Ringle FLORIDA TODAY WASHINGTON A key part of President Reagan's "Star Wars" defensive plan would be crippled by a one-year ban on nuclear testing voted Friday by the House. Although touted as non-nuclear, the Strategic Defense Initiative is to include a space-based X-ray laser. A nuclear explosion will provide the electrical energy to create the laser beam that would zap enemy missiles. The administration has fought a test ban because it would forbid among other tests the nuclear explosions necessary for research on the X-ray laser.

It also has argued that underground tests are necessary to assure the safety of the nuclear arsenal and keep it up to date. At least 100 to 200 tests will be necessary to develop the so-called "third generation" of nuclear weapons, Robert Selden, head of the theoretical physics laboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory, estimated recently. Third generation weapons, which are a major aim of the Reagan administration, refer to nuclear explosions that would produce radiation and methods of disrupting electrical communications worldwide, as well as the X-ray laser. Not only was Rep. Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, among 234 Democrats who voted for the freeze, but he was a sponsor of the amendment, along with representatives who usually oppose most new nuclear weapons.

Thirty-four Republicans joined the majority. Among the 155 votes against the measure were 31 from Democrats. The vote was a veer left for Aspin who, since he became chairman last year, has been more supportive of major new weapons han in the past.