A 3-year-old girl is dead and a 4-year-old is hospitalized after their flotation devices slipped off and they went underwater at a pool party in Florida, authorities said.
Harmony Williams was playing in the water at a Tampa apartment complex when she drowned. Witnesses pulled her out and tried to give her CPR, but she was pronounced dead at a local hospital, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Tuesday.
Giaonna Chavalier was also rescued and taken to the same hospital, where she is no longer listed in critical condition.
“She is alert, breathing and expected to make a full recovery,” police said.
The tragedy happened shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday as a family was hosting a pool party in the apartment pool area attended by about 10 children and three adults.
“While playing in the water, at some point the girls took off their flotation devices,” police said. “By the time adults realized the young girls, who could not swim, had gone under the water, several people rushed into help, pulling the girls from the pool and performing CPR until (emergency medical services) arrived.”
No charges have been filed following the incident.
Children between ages 1 to 4 have the highest drowning rates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of those drownings occur in home swimming pools.
Drownings kill more children in that age group than any other cause except birth defects, it said.