Yet, there she was. The funeral home cosmetologist laid her out as if she were sleeping. A sprig of Baby's Breath in her hand. Her other arm raised over her head as if she was about to wake up and yawn. It broke my heart. You can only imagine how viewing this beautiful little girl this way affected her parents, grandparents and brothers. Except her brothers are too young to really understand what happened.
It was a horrible accident.
Mom thought the baby girl was safe. Dad thought she was safe. Grandma was at work. Her brothers were running around the back yard. No one knows for sure when she fell into the pool.
Life took a dramatic turn in 15 minutes.
It's after work. Ten-twelve minutes after 5 pm. Dad was in the garage doing laundry with the door open to the back yard. Mom went to the bathroom. You could hear the kids (8, 4 and 2 1/2) in the back yard. Eight -ten minutes later (5:20), Mom was putting away clean laundry in the bedroom with the window open to the back yard and the baby in the play pen, Dad's sorting dirty laundry in the garage realizes he's not hearing his little girl in the cacophony in the back yard. He calls out for her.
She doesn't answer. He only hears the boys.
He goes looking for her and finds her at the bottom of the pool a few minutes later. Not good. Bad. Very bad. He jumps in hollering for his wife. He gets her out of the water. He does CPR. His wife hysterically scrambles for the phone to call 911.
It's 5:30pm
The EMT's and police arrive and take over CPR.
The EMT's leave for the hospital with the baby not breathing at 5:37. Mom and Dad leave for the hospital taking their infant with them leaving the older brothers with their 15 year old uncle at twenty minutes of six. Not knowing what to do, Uncle called his Aunt at 6. He just finished his interview with the police who were still in the back yard.
The police took everyone's statements. Everyone says it's their fault - including the child's grandmother who found out when she pulled into the driveway 2 1/2 hours later (her cell phone had no power). Despite all the confessions, the police do not file any charges. They said it was preventable, but not criminal. They left the family to grieve. They felt like criminals.
When a child dies in an accident in the home in Florida, DCF is almost automatically called in. They arrive at 3am - 9 hours later. They are surprised the mother won't wake the children. She had only got home from the hospital at 11pm to find her sons up and unwilling to go to bed. She got them calm enough to go to sleep at midnight. She was fine with DCF taking pictures of inside the home and looking through her pantry and refrigerator. The parents had no problem with anything DCF wanted them to do other than stating the children wouldn't be interviewed until after 10am. She wanted the children well rested, up, washed, dressed and fed before the DCF interviews. DCF found no reason to remove the children from the home. DCF did state the front and back doors must be locked at all times, the children cannot be in the back yard without an adult being present in the backyard (not on the porch and not in the garage), the pool's screen enclosure must be repaired, locked and have an alarm installed and the house needs to be cleaned up.
Volunteers came. They brought food, rolls of screen, splime, hardware, tools, lattice, padlocks; everything needed to secure the pool area. The alarm is on order. One well meaning (but insensitive) person asked how they were ever going to get in the pool again. It wasn't the pool's fault either. The entire family will continue to swim. In hindsight it seems so matter of fact. Why didn't they scrape together the $200 needed for a pool alarm and 9 volt batteries, but in this household of 8 that lives on the median income; rent, food, insurance, electric and phone bills always seemed to take priority. Like I said, everyone has confessed to this wrongful death. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and friends are all kicking themselves that they didn't give money to this couple to get the pool alarm.
All are missing the fact that it's possible that a pool alarm would not have been enough. All the kids received swimming lessons and it wasn't enough. It was apparent she hit her head upon falling into the pool - it's probable she was too stunned to call out for help. The alarm could have gone off, but in the minutes it would have taken for the alarm to sound and her Dad to run from the garage to the pool to getting her out of the pool could still have been too long.
I know I went to the bathroom when my daughter was 2 1/2 in our pool home and nothing went wrong for me. I cooked dinner while my daughter and her friends played in the back yard near the pool. True, the window from my kitchen looks directly over the pool, so I knew immediately if anyone got into the pool - no one did without permission. I know I've stepped three feet into the house while kids were in the pool to get another towel or more sunscreen and nothing went wrong. Drowning is a leading cause of death in children under the age of 14. Drowning is fast - one minute is all it takes.
It's been nearly 2 weeks since that awful evening. It only took 15 minutes to go from normal every day to the unthinkable.
Preventable, but not criminal is what the police officer called it.
Awwwwww, man.
There's a hole in my heart.
A casket is no place for a two year old toddler.