5-Year-Old Boy Drowns In Malden Pool
MALDEN (CBS) -- A five-year-old boy drowned in a backyard pool in Malden Thursday.
Police were called to a home on Princeton Road just before noon after the boy, identified as Jeremiah Joseph, went missing while he was visiting a cousin's house. The cousin told WBZ-TV, his family and police were searching around the neighborhood when he looked over the fence toward the neighbor's yard.
"I saw his shoes by the pool, and his jacket. So when I looked inside the pool, I could see him in the bottom of the pool," said Dieutson Francois. "I jumped over the fence and I got inside the pool, I got him out, I raised him up and the officer took him. Then, by that time, a bunch of other people were already here so they did their thing."
"I don't know if he was breathing at the time because my only concern was to get him out," Francois added.
A police officer began CPR and two nursing students helped continue it until an ambulance arrived.
"It was just a natural instinct to jump in there and do what we know how to do," said Jaime MacDonald, a recent St. Anselm's College nursing graduate.
She and Shannon Gibson, a nursing graduate from Endicott College, happened to be nearby.
"The cops were just kind of scattered around, there was somebody doing CPR, I asked if he needed me to switch out, so I switched out with him. I made sure he had an airway, she lifted up his head, we turned him to the side because he was gurgling a little bit," said Gibson.
The boy was taken to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital where he was pronounced dead around 1 p.m., Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan's office said in a statement, about an hour after the missing child call came in.
Police blocked off the property after the incident and could be seen inspecting the fence and pool area.
"No foul play is suspected and no additional information is being released at this time," Ryan's office said.
It is unclear how the boy got into the pool; both the yard the boy was in, and the yard with the pool were fenced.
The boy's great uncle, Prosper Previlon, said Jeremiah made everyone laugh. "I'm going to miss him a lot and I'm pretty sure everybody else is going to miss him too," Previlon said.
"You know you wouldn't know it would ever happen until it happens," Previlon said. "It's important for every parent to know that when you are having your eye on your kid, it has to be every single second."