A car found itself submerged in the Rivière des Mille Îles in Laval on Friday: a mother and her child were rescued, but in the evening, a second toddler had still not been rescued by the Laval police department (SPL).
Updated yesterday at 11:00 p.m.
The police received a call Friday around 5 p.m. reporting a “partially submerged” vehicle in the Rivière des Mille Îles, near the intersection of Rue Les Érables and Chemin Saint-Antoine, said Erika Landry, spokesperson for the SPL. .
According to authorities, a mother and her two children dived into the Mille Îles River from a vehicle. The cause of the incident still remains unknown.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, THE PRESS
The scene of the incident, near the Rivière des Mille Îles in Laval
According to witnesses, the car would have plunged directly into the river, at the exit of the parking lot of the LL Laval sur le Lac complex, says Normand Langlois, resident of the complex. A 4-year-old girl was reportedly rescued by someone on the scene, while the mother was still trapped under the car.
Nancy Désaulniers was walking along the edge of the river when she noticed the first responders at the scene of the incident, while a man had just pulled a girl out of the river. “She was screaming a lot. She was crying and she said her mother was in the water with a baby,” said the Laval resident in a telephone interview. The security perimeter had not yet been established at that time, and the lady saw the child in the arms of an ambulance attendant, “in a blanket and with wet hair”.
When Normand Langlois heard the police sirens at the end of the day, he immediately left. “It’s sad,” he laments.
The mother was “very troubled” when the police took her out of the water, said the man. “They were between 5 to 10 minutes to resuscitate her nonstop,” he adds. Nancy Désaulniers agrees. “They worked hard, the paramedics, to be able to resuscitate her,” she says.
Of the three occupants, only the mother and her eldest daughter were found and transferred to a hospital, authorities said. A young toddler was always missing in the evening. The water search has been suspended for the night and will resume on Saturday, confirmed Erika Landry.
Firefighters and police were dispatched to the scene to investigate. The investigation will be conducted by the Crimes Against the Person investigators.