Arlington Heights teen dies in pool accident

A 14-year-old Arlington Heights boy drowned over the weekend in an accident, the Cook County medical examiner's office ruled after an autopsy Monday.

William Ugoka, who recently graduated from Holmes Junior High in Mount Prospect, drowned in a pool Sunday in the Tanglewood Apartments in Arlington Heights, police said.

"I accept it (the medical examiner's ruling), but I still want to know exactly what happened," said William's mother, Mary Ugoka. She would like the kids who were present to tell her more about what happened, she said.

Ugoka said she was making the rounds Sunday as a certified nursing assistant in Elk Grove Village when she got a call from William's cell phone.

"Hello? Hello?" she said, upon hearing kids yelling in the background. Then, someone shouted, "Water! Water! Water!" before the phone went dead.

She called William back but got no reply. Then she paged him, but he never called back.

About 10 minutes later at about 6:30 p.m., she received a call from police that her son had drowned at a pool in the Tanglewood Apartments in Arlington Heights.

"I want to know what happened," Mary Ugoka said Monday, sitting next to her other son, Grant, 10, adding she found it hard to believe her child just jumped in the pool and died.

Cmdr. Ken Galinski of the Arlington Heights Police Department gave this account of what happened:

Six youths went to the swimming pool at 2135 S. Tonne Drive in the Tanglewood Apartments.

One had a key to the unguarded pool, which can be used by residents from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The key didn't work for some reason, so the youths jumped the fence to get in.

The first one into the pool was William, who jumped into the deep end, then came up through the surface flailing. The kids said William is known as a jokester and they didn't immediately realize anything was wrong.

After he stayed on the bottom of the pool for a while, a couple of the kids tried to get him out, but he was big and it took time. The kids estimated he was in the water 45 seconds.

The call for help came in at 6 p.m. When fire department paramedics arrived, they were hampered by the locked gate. The youth was taken to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, where he was pronounced dead at 6:45 p.m.

In January, the family had moved to the 900 block of East Shady Way of Arlington Heights from Chicago's South Side to be closer to Mary Ugoka's job at HCR Manor Care.

William had gotten straight A's while attending a Chicago school, but at Holmes Junior High in Mount Prospect, he received a smattering of A's, a B and a C, which frustrated him since he was used to perfect marks, Mary said.

He had already decided he wanted to become a corporate lawyer, so he wanted better grades, she said.

The transition from Chicago to the suburbs hadn't been a smooth one, but William's peaceful nature made it easier on the family.

During the second week of school, a student pushed him in the hallway, telling him he didn't belong there and should go back to where he came from.

Instead of getting angry, William just walked away, Mary Ugoka said.

But this didn't surprise her.

When Grant would get picked on after school on Chicago's South Side, William would simply usher his brother away instead of fighting.

"He told me, 'It's not worth it,'" Grant said.

William was born in Nigeria, where his parents are from. His father, Frank, is a Chicago cab driver who came to the U.S. and worked for a few years before Mary and the two boys could join him. The pair divorced about eight years ago, she said.

"He was a great son," Mary Ugoka said. "He was never a troublemaker. Not one bit."