A five-year-old toddler drowned in a hotel swimming pool in Plettenberg Bay on Saturday evening, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said.
NSRI Plettenberg Bay duty crew were activated at 6.37pm following reports from bystanders and calls from multiple eyewitnesses at the Beacon Island Hotel that bystanders had initiated cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) efforts on a five-year-old local boy, NSRI spokesman Craig Lambinon said.
A group of children swimming in the hotel pool had recovered the boy from underwater, he said.
“Children swimming in the pool noticed an object underwater in the pool and on closer inspection they realised that a child was lying at the bottom of the pool… the children rescued the child to the pool’s edge where adult bystanders, the parents of the children who had recovered the body from the pool, initiated CPR.
“NSRI medical crew, who carry full advanced life support medical kits in their vehicles, were on the scene in minutes and an ER trauma nurse (emergency room trauma nurse) from Mediclinic, off-duty but at home nearby and who is also on the NSRI emergency activation group, also responded to the scene. Medlife ambulance services were activated,” Lambinon said.
On arrival on the scene NSRI medics and the ER trauma nurse took over CPR from the bystanders and CPR efforts were assisted by a doctor who was at the hotel at the time and joined by Medlife paramedics on their arrival on the scene.
With CPR efforts continuing the child was transported to a hospital by ambulance where doctors continued with CPR in hospital, but sadly after all efforts to resuscitate the child were exhausted he had been declared dead. Police had opened an inquest docket.
Trauma counselors were attending to the family of the child – the mother believed to be at a local salon, and her daughter who was at the pool at the time. NSRI and emergency services conveyed condolences. The children who pulled the child from underwater and the bystanders, their parents who initiated CPR, were commended for their actions, Lambinon said.
– African News Agency (ANA)
