ORO VALLEY – The Oro Valley community is mourning the death of a young child after the first drowning of the year.
A 3-year old boy was found in a neighbor’s swimming pool in the 11000 block of Old Ram Court. He was reported missing, Wednesday afternoon. During the search, an Oro Valley police officer found him at the bottom of the neighbor’s pool. The officer attempted CPR, but it was too late.
We spoke with one of the victim’s family members, but with tears in her eyes, she said she had nothing to say and rushed back inside her home.
The family isn’t the only ones affected by this; the entire neighborhood is still shaken by the tragic news.
Wayne Boyd lives in the neighborhood. He said, “Kids playing around here all the time. You see them all the time so it’s shocking. It really is.”
And the neighbors aren’t alone in that feeling. Even first responders were caught off guard.
Anne-Marie Braswell with Safe Kids Tucson Coalition and Rural Metro Fire said, “It’s just not anything that we were ready to even think about because the weather is still cool.”
Cool or not, it happened. Now it’s turned into a tragic reminder of the importance of pool safety and watching over your kids.
Braswell said, “It’s one of those things in Southern Arizona we need to think about year round. When January comes around we need to make our new years resolution to keep our children safe, be a designated water watcher and remember the A,B,C’s of water safety and to talk to all of our children.”
Something this neighborhood hopes to do better in the future, all while mourning the loss of one of its youngest residents.
Boyd said, “To hear that something like that happen here, it kind of hits home. It’s personal. To me it is anyway.”
The incident is still under investigation and police said they’re not ready to release the name or information about how the boy got into the neighbor’s back yard. They’re also not commenting on the possibility of criminal negligence charges being filed but we’ll keep you posted.
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