2-year-old’s pool-party drowning stuns family
It seems several family members assumed someone else at the party was watching the 2-year-old boy who drowned Thursday night in a backyard pool on Charron Street in Bridgeport.
After partygoers realized he hadn’t come inside with the rest of them, the child was found floating and lifeless. One teen pulled him out of the pool and another started CPR, while others called 911.
But their efforts and those of first responders could not revive the boy, who was pronounced dead a short time later at St. Vincent’s Medical Center.
“He’s dead, he’s dead,” a voice wailed from the home’s porch. Family members had gotten a text from the boy’s mother, saying he was dead, police said.
“I’m never going to see him again,” another voice cried.
Police asked that the boy’s name not be disclosed. A city spokesman said the incident remains under investigation. In accordance with protocol, police said, they notified the Department of Children and Families of the death shortly before 1 a.m. Friday.
“The pool is not fenced in or otherwise barricaded, and can be accessed easily from any direction,” the police report said.
Thinking someone else is watching the kids is a common occurrence, according to the Bridgeport Emergency Operations Center said. Sometimes that assumption ends tragically.
“Parents normally have a lapse in supervision, not a lack of supervision,” a recent statement from the center said. “Sometimes one parent thinks the other is watching the child.”
In this case, police said, “The amount of time which elapsed between the time when (the 2-year-old) was noticed to be missing and when the (child) was located is not certain, as several family members gave different estimates ranging from 20 minutes to one hour.”
The first officer to arrive “observed a chaotic scene,” said the police report. He said there were 20 to 30 people, most of them appearing to range from 4 to 17 years old, in the backyard.
The officer said everyone was “in an obvious state of distress and hysteria.” He said as he got closer, he saw firefighters performing CPR on the boy, who was limp and unresponsive.
An uncle of the 2-yearold told police a pool party had been underway for several hours and that many of the children had been swimming in the above-ground, 5-foot-deep pool.
The gathering moved inside and to the front of the house before people realized the 2-year-old was missing, the uncle told police. Family members said the boy had been in the pool many times before, always with a life vest, but not that day.
When he was pulled from the water, the boy was not wearing a vest.
One neighbor, who declined to give his name, said the family moved into the house in early June from New York.
“They’re such a nice family,” he said. “This is just terrible.”
This isn’t the first time in recent years that the tragedy of a child’s drowning has hit the area.
A 5-year-old drowned in a backyard pool on Sunnybank Avenue in Stratford on July 2. In that incident, officers gave CPR to the child, who died the next day at a local hospital.
And last summer, a 2year-old was pulled from a backyard pool by her mother at a May Street home in Bridgeport. The girl was rushed to a hospital on June 30 and was put on life support. She died two days later.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 76 percent of drowning deaths in the nation involve children younger than 5, and 67 percent of swimming pool drowning deaths involve children younger than 3.
The drowning victims who survive, more than half are hospitalized or transferred for further care — and many of these cases involve permanent brain damage, the CDC reports.