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3-year-old drowns in San Roque
A 3-year-old child drowned last Monday after falling into a plywood-covered septic tank.
According to a Department of Public Safety statement, police received a 911 call at about 4:49pm last Monday about a boy being found unresponsive at a San Roque home. Once officers arrived to the scene at about 4:52pm, they immediately tried to revive the child via cardio-pulmonary resuscitation until paramedics arrived at the scene. Medics then took over the CPR process while rushing the child to the Commonwealth Health Center.
Dr. Edvalson Tanuja pronounced the 3-year-old boy dead at 5:19pm, with the cause of death attributed to drowning.
DPS reports that the police’s preliminary investigation revealed that the victim had been playing outside his family home when family members noticed that the child was nowhere to be seen. All of the victim’s family members searched around the house until one of them discovered the victim submerged in water in the home’s septic tank. In the police’s follow-up investigation, it was learned that the tank was covered with a piece of plywood, and the child must have fallen into the septic tank while walking over the plywood.
DPS spokesperson Adrian Pangelinan said there were no signs of foul play, but the case remains open.
The child is so far the third reported drowning case this year. The first was the drowning of Eiki Akayama, a 22-year-old Japanese model and well-known YouTube star, who was pronounced dead on Jan. 1, 2019, at 2:55pm after drowning off Bird Island. The second was that of a “local male,” who drowned outside the reef by Sugar Dock last March 22, 2019.
