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Rescued toddler back at home
Dollard 2-year-old saved from drowning
Anne Sutherland
The Gazette
Thursday, April 24, 2008
2-year-old Liya is back at home.
Lucky toddler Liya came home from the Montreal Children’s Hospital on Sunday after
almost drowning last Friday morning in her family’s pool in Dollard des Ormeaux.
The 2-year-old fell into the water in the in-ground pool and, save for some bruises from the intravenous needles and swollen lips from the breathing apparatus, her father said it’s as if nothing happened.
“She has full memory of falling in,” said Richard, who did not want his last name published. “She pointed to the pool this morning and told me: ‘Liya go boom,’ ” he said Monday.
The family moved to Dollard from downtown Montreal on Feb. 19 and, until last week, their pool was invisible under this winter’s snow.
The entire backyard of the stone bungalow is fenced-in as per municipal bylaws, but the pool itself is not closed off from the rest of the yard or deck.
“I was looking for a pool and a park, and a place for the kids to play,” Richard said. “I have never had a pool, so I was always planning to put a fence around this one.”
Last Friday morning, Liya got up, put on her shoes and managed to get through two locked sliding patio doors onto the brick interlock back deck.
She went over to the pool and was splashing her fingers in the shallow end, the only part of the pool not covered in ice, when gravity took over her
33-pound body and she tumbled face-first into the water.
In the house, things were too quiet, always a sign of trouble with a toddler, Richard said.
When Liya didn’t answer calls, her mother went looking for her, saw the patio doors open and then saw a bubble come up out of the water. She pulled the child from the water.
Her parents estimate she was in the water for four minutes before she was found upside down in the pool, unconscious.
The cold water probably saved her from brain and organ damage, said her dad, as hypothermia slows down the body’s functions. Her body temperature when she was found was 31 C, six degrees below normal.
On Monday, Liya’s finger marks where she came to rest on the bottom of the pool were still visible in the green algae coating the liner in the shallow end.
Richard, who had been driving another child to school, came home just before the police arrived to find his daughter on the floor of the living room, purplish-blue and not breathing.
He took the phone from his wife and tried to do what
Urgences Santé was telling him to resuscitate Liya.
At that point, Constable Giovanni Zampini from police Station 4 came through the door, cleared the child’s airway of mucus and water, and began CPR.
What could have been a terrible tragedy was thankfully averted, but Richard has
already started to bolster security around his pool to prevent any further accidents.
A dowel in the tracks now prevents the sliding doors from being opened even when unlocked.
He is making plans to install a fence around the pool with a self-closing spring gate and a lock.
“The fence we have now protects the neighbour kids, but not my own. People say keep the fence up until the kids are 5, but I plan to keep it up forever.”
Every year, on average, 12 children between the ages of 1 and 4 drown in pools in Canada. Almost half of those occur in Quebec, said Sylvie Santerre of the Canadian Red Cross.
asutherland@
thegazette.canwest.com