Shortly after 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Yuma Fire Department personnel were sent to a home in the 1100 block of Brahma Lane regarding a report of a child drowning.
YFD paramedics arrived on scene to find a Yuma police officer performing CPR on a 3-year-old boy. The child had been found in the backyard pool by family members and was removed unresponsive and not breathing. It is believed the child could have been under water for five to ten minutes.
Paramedics worked on the child at the scene, later transporting him to Yuma Regional Medical Center where further efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, YFD reported.
According to Mike Erfert, YFD spokesman, when on the scene of drowning or near-drowning incidents involving children, emergency responders often hear that the child was out of sight around water for only a few minutes or even seconds.
Arizona loses the equivalent of a classroom full of children each year to drowning, Erfert said. Some drownings occur in pools, some in rivers or lakes and others in bathtubs. Children 4 years old and younger are at the greatest risk. A child can drown in as little as an inch or two of water.
Adult supervision, barrier fencing around pools with self closing/self latching gates and CPR make up the ABCs of child drowning prevention, Erfert said. Bystanders stepping up to perform CPR have made the difference in several recent near-drowning cases.
However, this is the second recent child drowning involving a backyard pool in Yuma.
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