Near Drowning Puts Child in Critical Condition

Near Drowning Puts Child in Critical Condition: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

PHOENIX – An 18-month-old child is in the intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital in central Phoenix, after being pulled from a swimming pool.

The little girl is in critical condition. She apparently squeezed through a doggy door and fell into a relative’s backyard pool, near 32nd Avenue and Sweetwater.

The 18-month-old little girl wasn’t breathing when she was rescued from a backyard pool around 5:00 p.m. Tuesday.

“En route we were doing everything for her, breathing for her and providing chest compressions to try and resuscitate her,” says Fire Capt. Scott Walker.

There was no barrier around the pool, and it appears it hadn’t been cleaned in awhile. Investigators tell us the toddler was visiting relatives when she slipped through the doggy door and fell in.

She may have been underwater for as long as 2 minutes before a family member found her.

“That’s what we typically see is, there’s a lot of people in a home, someone gets distracted, somebody thinks somebody else is watching their child, child gets lost in shuffle.”

There were as many as 8 children and 3 adults, including the toddler’s mother, inside this home at the time.

We’re told a motorcycle officer made it to the scene first and immediately began performing CPR.

For him this call was especially heartbreaking, because he has an 18-month old child at home.

“We just have to make sure if you have a pool, you have a huge responsibility to make sure its protected and you’re doing everything you can to make sure this doesn’t happen,” says Capt. Walker.

The child is on a ventilator as of Tuesday night.