SAN ANTONIO — A toddler who had been reported missing earlier on Thursday was found floating in an apartment pool, police say.
San Antonio police responded to the 13000 block of Vista Del Norte near Wurzbach Parkway around 8:30 a.m., where authorities say a 2-year-old boy who had disappeared somehow fell into an apartment pool before he was found by officers.
Police said the boy's mother began CPR until EMS got there. He was taken to a hospital but was pronounced dead by medical staff.
Herself a mother, Emily Dow feels for the family who lost the toddler. Dow is an aquatics professional in the San Antonio area and assistant professor at the University of the Incarnate Word.
"It is a tragedy," she said. "It is heartbreaking. No family wants to ever experience losing a child. But losing a child to a drowning is even more difficult."
The medical examiner has identified the 2-year-old as Amari Jobe.
"You just send lots of prayers and condolences," she said. "There is a saying in the drowning prevention community: Not one more. Everybody can pick it apart. Everyone can say should have, could have, would have. But, in the moment, you can't predict when a drowning will happen. Right now, it is prayers and condolences for the family."
Dow cited five important reminders from the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, referred to as the five layers of protection: barriers and alarms, supervision, water competency, life jackets, and emergency preparation.
"Drowning can happen within 20 to 60 seconds," she said. "It is not minutes. It is seconds. (If) you can't find somebody and there is a body of water, you go to that water. That's the first place you always want to look."
Dow said children can start swimming lessons as young as 6 months old.
As for this case, the cause and manner of death of the little boy have not been released. San Antonio police are investigating this as a drowning, adding no charges are expected as of Thursday afternoon.
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