Child drownings | The weekend marked by two tragedies

The weekend was marked by two tragic events in terms of drownings. A 4-year-old boy lost his life in Saint-Lambert on Saturday while another 5-year-old was fighting for his after being found unresponsive at the bottom of a swimming pool on Sunday.

Vincent Larin
The Press

This last tragedy occurred at the end of the afternoon, around 3:47 p.m., in Repentigny, in a residence on Iberville Boulevard.

A neighbor of the scene, José Pereira, says he ran behind the house after his wife heard screams from the courtyard where the tragedy occurred. The pool’s green, viscous water, which had not been maintained since the end of winter, complicated the search.

“I jumped into the water, then dived to the bottom. I moved my hands, tried to find the child, but all I touched were rocks, toys. I couldn’t see anything, I was choking on the water,” says José Pereira. “My child, my child! cried the mother then.

With the help of the child’s father and another neighbour, the toddler was eventually located in the deep end of the pool. He spent more than 20 minutes underwater, according to José Pereira. The neighbor managed to pull him out of the bottom of the pool and, with the help of a policeman who arrived in the meantime, to get him out of the pool.

The child was rushed to Sainte-Justine hospital, and there were still fears for his life late Sunday evening, especially since he no longer showed vital signs when he was taken into care. charged by paramedics.

“I ran, I did my best, but it seems that it was not enough. I have my CPR course, if we had been able to find it earlier, I might have been able to do something, ”regrets José Pereira.

Twice in two days

An investigation has been opened by the Service de police de la Ville de Repentigny (SPVR) to try to clarify the circumstances of the event. This is the second drama of its kind in less than two days in Quebec.

A 4-year-old toddler drowned on Saturday afternoon in a residential swimming pool in Saint-Lambert, on the South Shore of Montreal. Again, the family was there at the time of the tragedy.

And there again, an ongoing investigation should make it possible to establish the circumstances of the drowning. “What were the accesses to the swimming pool? What was the monitoring? This is what the investigation will be able to determine in the coming hours and days,” said François Boucher, public relations officer for the Longueuil agglomeration police department.

Lack of supervision

Raynald Hawkins, executive director of the Lifesaving Society for 32 years, recalls that the number one factor in explaining child drownings remains the lack of supervision.

Year after year, about eight children lose their lives in this way in Quebec. The drowning of the 4-year-old toddler in Saint-Lambert on Saturday was also the first of a child in a residential swimming pool in the province this year, when there have already been 19 drownings.

“It’s always sad to see that it affects children because necessarily, they are not always concerned about the risks attributed to swimming”, explains Raynald Hawkins.

Restricted

Questioned a few moments after the news of the drowning in Repentigny, Raynald Hawkins refrained from speculating on the causes of the accident, but the fact that it occurred in a swimming pool which was obviously not yet open leaves him to think that the boy had no intention of ending up in the water.

Nothing indicates for the moment that these two tragedies are due to missing or non-compliant fences, but Raynald Hawkins recalls that all owners of residential swimming pools built before 2010 will eventually have to ensure that they are fitted out and finally restrict access to children.

In the context of a pandemic, marked by an increase in the cost of building materials, a shortage of labor and greater demand for residential swimming pools, the deadline for complying with the new regulations, initially scheduled for 1^er July 2023, is September 30, 2025.